On The Doorstep
by Anna St. James
Summary: Mick's Private Detective Profession Leaves Him With An Infant to Reunite With Its Parents. How Does He Cope? MickXBeth JosefXSarah
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: First and foremost, I do not own trademark copyright or anything of Moonlight.

Second, and possibly more important, is that this story uses the background of "The Fledgling" written by ErisFury here on the Moonlight FanFiction area. Eris is an amazing author, and I am truly honored to have her permission to use some of her ideas and layout. I recommend anyone reading this to definitely read "The Fledgling" to have a better understanding of the character relationships.

This is also my first writing for FanFiction. I appreciate feedback, positive, negative (constructive preferably) but most importantly, honest. All people starting a skill are sometimes terrible at it, at first!

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Chapter One: The Delivery

Beth and Mick had been together for about five years now. Beth has settled into her new life as a vampire, after being turned by Josef on one fateful day when she was burned severely while doing a report on a fire.

Beth had adjusted to her life, but leaving her own family behind, BuzzWire had found the charred cameraman and gear after the fire was over, and had reported her death too. Her whole family believed she was dead, her sister and her twin niece and newphews were some of the people closest to her. It broke her heart when she realized she could never see them again.

In the years that followed, Mick had renovated his loft by some of Josef's finest workers, a space to allow him and Beth to spend their time together. Having Mick has closed that small hole in Beth's heart, and she feels totally and completely happy for the first time she can recall.

For being five years old, in vampire years, she had just presumed that she'd be a fully adult vampire, but vampires aren't bound by time. She wishes she had the discipline of Mick sometimes, and she tries to control her rages, but they still crop up.

It was about 7pm when Beth first started to wake from her slumber. She and Mick had been married for a few years, and though he slept naked, from time to time she'd still feel modest and need a lightweight cotton shirt. She laughed to herself at one thing that Josef said about fledglights, that they had three priorities now, eating, sleeping and sex. Maybe its true, especially when she was a fledgling, but some nights she just wants to cuddle and be close to Mick while the sleep. Being near him feels safe, he's been her rescuer on more than one occasion, and heck, she's been his own.

Beth stretches out, loving the subzero. For being a small little room, it has more than enough room for the two of them.

Mick stirs, wrapping his arm around tighter around Beth, murmuring softly at her. She kisses him, and gently nips his ear before untangling her golden tresses, and her arms from his grasp.

Mick was up late, working on a case of a wanna-be-vampire group of friends, committing crimes that they believe that only vampires would do, killing small animals, dogs, cats, but Mick is concerned that they'll soon find a defenseless human and kill her or him, to further validate themselves. The backslash on the true Vampire community could be catastrophic, and Mick is trying to get to the bottom of this before there are serious implications for the vampire community. Beth was up with him earlier, going through pictures, evidence, but as a young vampire, as soon as the sun came out, she found herself sleepy and went to bed.

She finishes untangling herself from Mick, and steps out of the subzero. She takes a quick shower, she loves the way the water feels on her body, the rivulets dripping down her back. After her shower, wrapped in her favorite bathrobe, she contemplates what to wear, she opts for a more casual day, her favorite pair of black yoga pants, a simple white shirt, and a pink cardigan hoodie. She puts on a pair of black socks for now, she'll find her sneakers later.

She's still upstairs when she hears a noise outside Mick's front door, a soft clatter, followed by a soft sigh. She knows his door is locked and almost impenetrable,

"Its probably a late UPS delivery." she tells herself.

Late deliveries by the men in brown is not an uncommon event, Mick's home is at the end of the route. They however, didn't buzz the door.

"That's kind of odd." Beth thinks to herself, but doesn't pay much attention as she finishes brushing her hair and teeth.

She's getting ready to go downstairs and get Mick's package, when she hears another sigh. It certainly isn't Mick. She concentrates, and realizes there's a living human still on the other side of the door, also softly snoring in addition the sigh.. There is no trace of vampire, asides from Herself, Mick, and having Josef and Sara over yesterday, their scents are faint, but detectable.

She pours herself a glass of blood, then goes to Mick's door security camera, rewinding the tape slightly. She takes a deep drink of the liquid in her glass, barely paying attention to it. The clatter at the door was by a person, a woman, Beth was guessing, wearing a dark hooded shirt, concealing herself from full view of the camera. She sets something down, sets down an envelope, and leaves. Beth finishes her drink, and sets the glass down in the sink, running some water through.

Beth takes another deep breath, she still smells human, a close human, on the other side of the door.

Feeling slightly fearful, she opens up the door, and is met by a shock. Outside the door is an infant car seat, with infant inside, sleeping soundly. Beside the car seat is some sort of bag with cartoon zoo animals, with her sister having twins, she realizes quickly that this must be a diaper bag. At the top of the diaper bag is a note addressed "Mick St. John"

Initially, she's furious with Mick. She's ready to go upstairs and attack him for his infidelities. How could he have a relationship with another woman, while they're married. How could he go and decide after all this time that he wanted to parent a child, and keep the entire thing secret from Beth for so many months? Her fury turns to bewilderment, as it occurs to her that a vampire can't make babies. Whoever this baby belongs to, it doesn't belong to Mick.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Moonlight and its own entities do not belong to me.

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Chapter 2: The Reality 

Beth brings the carseat, the diaperbag and the note inside, setting the carseat on the floor, the diaperbag on the coffee table with the note. She is now utterly bewildered, as a private investigator, Mick finds missing children sometimes, but she's never heard of someone leaving a child in his care.

She looks at the baby in the seat. The baby is wearing a pink and white ruffled pajama, and sleeping contentedly. The baby, obviously, must be a girl. With her knowledge of her own sister raising twins and lending a hand while they were young, she had to guess the little girl to be about five months old. The little girl looked healthy, she was a good size, her cheeks were round, and at the moment she had her lips pursed together, beautiful little rosebud lips. In Beth's opinion, the little girl had been fed well, taken care of, and didn't even have a soiled diaper. She had wispy light blonde hair, fair skin with just a dusting of pink on her cheeks. Everyone thinks that infants are beautiful, but this little girl was clearly gorgeous.

Even if this child wasn't Mick's, there was still a lot of explaining for Mick to do. Beth thought she'd wake him up and break the news to him before he had a chance to see the baby. She went to Mick's hidden refrigerator and poured him a glass of A positive, his current favorite flavor of the week. She carried the deeply frosted glass upstairs and into the bathroom, through the room that looked like a closet, to the trapdoor, opened the door, and the freezer, and climbed in, sitting croslegged beside Mick.

"Mick honey, I need you to wake up" Beth falsetto whispered.

Mick smiled in his half-sleep daze, "when was the last time anyone had brought me breakfast in bed", he thought to himself.

"In a little bit Beth, I need some rest" Mick murmured, trying to pull her close.

"Mick, open your eyes and look at me" Mick opened his eyes, showing that the whites had turned to yellow.

"Mick, I have a case for you, or a problem, I'm not entirely sure what, but its downstairs waiting for you." Mick shot straight up.

"What do you mean 'problem'?" Mick was bewildered, but whatever it was, he was going to protect Beth from it.

"First Mick, have your breakfast, today may be a long day." Beth hands Mick the tall glass, which he downs quickly, then climbs out of the subzero, and is quickly pulling on some clothes, a faded pair of jeans, a black long-sleeved shirt, his socks and shoes. He glances past the mirror and is glad that his hair is cooperating. He rinses out his mouth to hid any evidence of blood drinking, in case there's a client downstairs for him, then he walks downstairs, Beth following him.

Mick's bewilderment turns to confusion. His eyes and his nose tell him the same thing at the same moment. There is a little human, sleeping in his livingroom. Sleeping peacefully. He looks over to Beth.. "What is going on?" He demands. "This is the problem?"

Beth, not expecting his outburst is caught off guard. "Someone dropped off a baby," she stammers "There's a note for you on the diaper bag. I haven't touched it because I don't want to disturb any fingerprints."

Mick starts reading the note, and the baby starts to stir, her eyes flutter open to a very beautiful baby blue color. A vile smell begins to permeate the air, and the baby girl scrunches up her beautiful porcelain face and starts to whimper.

"Beth, do something with this little one, surely you know more about infant needs than I do", Mick says over the top of the letter he's still reading.

"Don't you need evidence from the diaper bag? A fingerprint, something?" Beth asks questioningly.

"Don't need to, woman already identified herself in her note."

Beth picks up the infant, nestling her in one arm, as she opens up the diaper bag, finding what she hoped for, clean diapers, wipes, formula, bottles and a whole bunch of other things she wouldn't need that moment. She reaches for the diapers and the wipes and spies a tube of rash crème, just in case. She walks into Mick's guest bathroom, sets down her supplies, juggles the infant to her other arm, takes a full size towel and folds it to approximate baby-changing-pad size, the whimpering little girl in her arms has her eyes wide open, watching everything that this nice but strange person is doing. Beth sets the little girl on the improvised changing mat, and unsnaps her pajamas and her undershirt. The little girl immediately squeals in delight at finding her toes, and puts her toes in her mouth, all whimpering forgotten. Beth surmises that it's definitely more difficult to diaper a little one who doesn't want to relinquish their foot, but after helping to care for her sister's twins, she thinks she did an acceptable job.

Snapping together the onesie and taking away the toes to snap up the frilly pajamas earned Beth a red-faced screaming onslaught by this little girl.

Beth tosses the soiled diaper into the trash, making mental note to tell Mick before his heightened senses find it. She picks up the little girl and walks back into the livingroom. Mick is nowhere to be found, but she can hear rustling in his office, and presumes he's back there on the computer. The baby's wails now are coming at high volume. She finds a bottle, rinses it, and fills it was warm water. She realizes she has no way of determining temperature on the inside of her wrist - the way she's accustomed to, and digs through the diaper bag, still holding the screaming child. Triumphantly she holds up the baby thermometer, the item she was looking for. She walks back to the bottle and checks the temperature of the water. "Perfect temperature for a bottle". She thinks to herself.

She adds the powdered formula, screws on the nipple, and shakes the entire water/formula situation thoroughly. She seats herself on Mick's leather chair, pops the bottle in the infant's mouth, then leans over to grab a burp cloth and an extra blanket for the little one (Mick's place is cold, she reasons, a non-vampire would definitely enjoy a blanket). The now-content baby is making endearing slurping noises with the bottle, reaching up and twisting her fingers through her golden downy hair.

Beth stops to realize that this infant feels completely at ease around her, and sighs herself with contentment. After drinking her bottle, the little angelic girl lets out a decidedly unangelic burp, then nestles into Beth's arms, looking at her and looking around the room.

Mick emerges from the office. "Thank god you got that banshee to quiet down" he says with a smile on his face.

Beth not about to get a good insult get away "She must have seen your face, Mick, an old mug like yours would get any baby screaming".

Mick laughs, enjoying his spunky Beth.

Beth is quick to get to the point. "What was in the letter, what did you find out?".

"Mom's name is Anne, and this is her five month old daughter name Alisa. Anne is dying of terminal bone marrow cancer and needs help uniting the baby to a biological father named Tom Cudelli, who she hasn't had contact with since the night the baby was conceived. Tom probably doesn't know he's a father. Anne has no siblings, her parents have both passed away. Even though Tom was an affair relationship, she feels that he is a very decent person who wouldn't turn his own child away.

"I looked him up and found that he's a CEO of a very profitable business, no wife, no children, and his work brings him to LA every few months. He has a clean record. Anne had been his temporary secretary, pulled in whenever he was in LA and his personal secretary was unable to travel with him. Anne was diagnosed with cancer shortly before Alisa was born, but refused treatment that would harm her baby. She may have saved Alisa's life, but she gave herself a death sentence."

"We need to find Tom Cudelli, introduce him to his daughter, try to keep child welfare from stepping into this, and unite this family that he never knew existed"

Beth looks down at the cooing little Alisa in her arms, and smiles down at the baby's bright blue eyes "Don't worry, sweetie, we'll get you where you need to go".

She looks over at Mick, "What do we do now?"

Mick is rummaging through his drawer, and holds up his car keys triumphantly. "Right now" he says confidently, "I head over to Josef's, I'll call Josef and Ryder and see what we can do to get more background on this father guy".

"Are you forgetting something, Mister Private Investigator Sir?" Beth asks coolly.

"Uh", he responds, "Not really".

Beth stands up and hands the cooing little girl to him. He holds her uncomfortably, realizing that its been quite a long time since he held a child, never one so young. Beth grins at him "You're forgetting that you're the caretaker of one little girl named Alisa. Have fun!"

As Beth turns to walk upstairs, she hears the baby start wailing and Mick utter something unrepeatable under his breath. She grins. He may make a great private investigator, but he doesn't know the first thing about kids.

With a few years of knowing Mick, she grabs her gym bag and tosses in an extra set of clothing for herself. As she zips up the bag, she hears Mick and the now screaming infant come up the stairs. Beth turns to face Mick as he walks through the door "Mmm Beth, I think I need your help with this case." He says softly, his own way of saying that he's scared to death of this little twelve pound bundle.

She walks over and picks up the infant, still being held uncomfortably in Mick's two hands and wailing loudly. She nuzzles the little girl close to herself and hums the first few lines of a favorite children's song. The little girl looks up, and blinking back tears in her long lashes, offers Beth a toothless grin.

"Okay, Mick, you've got my help on this case. The three of us are headed over to Josef's house, you may want to call and give him the heads-up".

Still holding the little girl close, Beth grabs her bag of extra clothes, walks downstairs and grabs the wipes and crème from the bathroom, and stuffs everything back into the diaper bag. She delicately places the infant in her car seat, wrapping her gently with a blanket and handing her a pink stuffed giraffe that had been sitting in the car seat from earlier. The little girl squeals, grabbing the giraffe, offers Beth another heart-melting toothless grin, then proceeds to attempt to put the giraffe's tail into her mouth.

Mick asks from behind her "What can I do to help?" he asks. Beth grins for a second, wondering how he'd respond if she handed him the baby carrier.

"Why don't you take the bags, my bag and the diaper bag and Anne's letter."

Mick sighs, audibly relieved that she didn't put him in charge of that little adorable, yet loud monster.

Mick walks out of the loft with Beth and the baby, make their way toward the elevator, and down to the garage. He gets on the phone with Josef, finding out that Ryder is already at Josef's home, while Beth manages to get baby and car seat strapped snugly in the back seat. Beth shuts the door and gets into the front passenger seat, as Mick opens the driver's door.

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Author's Note: I'm new at this, and I truly appreciate any feedback you're willing to share. I know where I want the story to go, but I would appreciate any thoughts or ideas of things you would or would NOT want to see. If anyone is a late-night sort of person with a knack for grammar, punctuation and trustworthiness, I am looking for someone who may have an interest in proofreading (I'm a good proofreader myself, just nice to make sure my own thoughts make sense someone else) my stories before I jump and hit the publish button... if this appeals to you, send me a message. 


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: Moonlight isn't mine. This, to the best of my knowledge, is not about to change

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Chapter 3: Of Babies and Vampires

Once in the car, the little one settles down, lulled to sleep by the gentle movements of the vehicle.

Mick is looking very lost in thought, and Beth wishes for a moment that she was capable of reading minds. Finally she gives up and shares a few thoughts of her own.

"Out of the thousands of private investigators in Los Angeles County, why did she pick you, and why on earth would she just deposit a child with a stranger?"

Mick looked over at Beth, wondering if she was reading his own thoughts. "I was just thinking that myself, plus thinking about the irony of someone giving a human baby to a bunch of vampires for safe keeping. This woman is obviously naïve, or she has a lot more understanding than we give her credit for. Ryder will be able to get more information on both the mother and father of this little girl, more in depth than I was able to get on short notice"

They both settled into silence.

The drive to Josef's home normally took several minutes, but with the lack of traffic, they arrived there in record time.

They made a small spectacle of themselves, Beth taking off the seatbelt of their 12 pound cargo, Mick taking the bags, and patiently waiting for her, the astonished look hadn't quite left his eyes.

When all was finally ready, Mick and Beth headed inside, and were met by Karl. Beth kissed Karl on the cheek while greeting him hello, and the man turned his gnarled face into something, Mick surmised, like a grin. Karl was extremely fond of the spunky blonde.

Beth and Mick were met by the door by Sara, who gave Beth a warm hug, and a gentle hug to Mick. She knelt down and looked apprehensively at the sleeping human baby. "Josef said you were bringing a baby. I almost didn't believe him."

"Where are Josef and Ryder?" Mick asked, uncomfortable at all the attention being given to this little strange creature.

Sara answered "They're upstairs in Josef's office, they've been expecting you."

Mick starts walking off, then turns around and reaches into his trench coat before he takes it off. He hands Beth the last page of Anne's letter. "This has some information about taking care of Alisa, maybe it will help, but you seem to have a knack already".

Mick turns and walks to the office.

Beth takes a deep breath and inventories the scene in front of her, and sets down the baby carrier.. Sarah has adjusted finally to the 21st century and is dressed comfortably in a pair of jeans and a dark green long sleeved shirt, showing off her copper highlights of her hair very beautifully. Alisa is still sleeping peacefully, but truth be told, Beth had no idea how long the tranquility would last.

Beth skims over the list Anne had written about Alisa.

"Alisa is a very cheerful baby. She's not afraid of strangers.

"She's a very healthy baby, she's had all of her childhood immunizations for a 5 month old, she had a cold last month, but felt better with some children's Tylenol. She's never had colic, but I think she may start teething anytime soon.

"She usually drinks 8 ounces of formula every 4-6 hours, she'll tell you when she's hungry. Instructions for formula are written on the formula canister. Her pediatrician said that she's good to begin on solid foods when she's 6 months old.

"She has a very delicate bottom, and she will let you know immediately if she's especially wet or soiled. Directions for the diapers are written on the diaper package.

"She usually sleeps for 3 hours in the midmorning, another 3 hours midafternoon, and for the most part she'll sleep through the night, awaking once when she's hungry or if she soils herself.

"Her favorite toy is a pink stuffed giraffe, and her bedtime routine consists of a warm bath, a massage with lavender scented baby lotion, and snuggle time with stories, followed by a bottle and rocking her until she falls asleep. She likes to be tucked in with her giraffe.

"When she first wakes up in the morning, she'll usually play with a toy in her crib or she'll look around the room. She's a very content little girl."

Beth finishes reading, folds up the page, sets it inside the baby carrier, and sighs softly. Sara, who had been looking, just watching Alisa sleep, looks up at the expression on Beth's face.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Sara asks her best friend.

"Nothing's wrong, she's a beautiful healthy little girl. Her life schedule is completely not set up to be staying with vampires, and I hope that Mick finds the Alisa's father soon" Beth says "If you don't mind watching Alisa, according to the note, she'll probably sleep for several hours, I'd like to go to the office and find what Josef and Ryder and Mick are learning."

Sara glows with pride. "I'd love to watch her, but I never had any siblings, none of my friends had children, and I don't know much about children."

Beth smiles. "Well, first, lets make this little girl more comfortable. Do you know if any of the rooms in the freshie wing are vacant?"

Sara nods, "The second bedroom on the left is empty"

Beth smiles again. "Do you think you can find a few thick towels?"

Sara nods again, "I'll go get them, I'll be back in a minute"

Beth slowly eases the infant out of her baby carrier, and holds her close for a few minutes, before setting her gently on the bed, setting a pillow on either side, in case Alisa manages to roll over in her sleep.

Sara returns with several white fluffy towels. "What's going on?" she asks.

"Well, we're going to invent a temporary baby crib for Alisa. I've done this a few times in a pinch with my niece and nephew when they were young, I hope I haven't lost my touch."

Beth pulls out a dresser drawer, and dumps the impersonal contents (as impersonal as could be in Josef's own freshie wing: bathrobe, a few new items from Victoria's Secret, and a few bikinis with tags still attached) on the floor. Sara hands her a bath towel, and Beth folds it to the exact dimensions of the drawer and sets it in the bottom of the drawer. When Sara hands her a second towel, Beth unfolds it entirely, and after centering the drawer underneath the towel, she presses the towel down, gently folding the excess toweling to make an improvised bumper along the sides.

Beth smiles at her handiwork, and Sara smiles in approval. "That looks like a cozy place to sleep" Sara says.

"Sara," Beth says, "Have you ever held a baby before?"

Sara gets a slightly apprehensive look in her eyes, as though Beth just instructed Sara to juggle flaming bowling balls.

Looking at Sara, Beth laughs warmly at her best friend. "Its not hard, I promise. I became a real expert awhile back, I won't let anyone get hurt. Have a seat on the overstuffed chair in the corner."

Sara takes a seat, still looking apprehensive. Beth gently swaddles the infant with her baby blanket, less likely to have little Alisa startle awake, and then gently walks over and places the infant in her best friend's arms. "Here, you can use the inside bend in your elbow to help support the head, and while you're sitting, your other arm is completely free." Beth coaches gently.

The infant's eyes flicker open, looking up at Sara, before drifting closed again.

Sara is mesmerized by this little warm bundle before her. She sits for several minutes just looking at this precious baby. Beth finds a seat on the edge of the bed, and just watches the two of them, reminiscing on the first time she met her own niece. She must have looked almost the same, bewildered and so full of love, she realizes with mild bemusement.

After a few minutes, Sara breaks the silence "How do I get her back into her little baby bed?"

"Not hard at all, would you like to learn?" Beth asks.

Sara nods her head, and finds herself being coached gently by Beth, how to support the baby's weight with her free hand, how to hold the baby close to her so she doesn't feel like she's falling, how to move the baby's head from the crook of her elbow to the palm of her hand as she sets the infant into her makeshift bed.

Beth straightens out the baby's blanket, and adds a second blanket, then picks up the baby-in box, and heads out of the freshie wing, Sara beside her with the baby carrier.

"Is Josef's room still a nice quiet place?" Beth asked to Sara. "This little girl could use a little quiet while we figure out what we need to do with her future".

Sarah nods and says "I'll be happy to watch her while you talk with Mick."

"Thanks, I appreciate it" Beth says, as she sets down the makeshift baby bed at the foot of Josef's own bed.

She goes across the hall to see if the guys have any more information about Alisa's family or life.


	4. Chapter 4

Authors Note: Moonlight & Moonlight Characters- Not Mine

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My heartfelt appreciation goes to the readers out there who have chosen to read this story and give me feedback. And heartfelt appreciation to the readers who don't give feedback. Thank you for taking the time to read my work.

Ecco Chapter 4 :) Buona notte and grazie mille

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4. The history and life of two parents

She walks down the hall and greets Josef, and Ryder, and sits down beside Mick. Mick has a drink in his hand, and Beth glances at the dark red liquid, then gives her husband a hug and a snuggle, before helping herself to a few sips of his drink, giving him a wink.

"Are you hungry, Beth?" Josef asks, ever perceptive, and still a little protective of the vampire he sired himself.

"A little, I think its probably more stress than anything else" Beth replies honestly.

Josef leaves the room momentarily, and returns with a frosted glass with her favorite liquid. "Thank you, Josef" she responds gratefully.

"What have you found so far?" Beth asked the guys, as she gulps down the contents of her glass.

The guys all share a glance before Mick clears his throat.

"Anne's real name is Annelise Alder. She's been checked in at UCLA Medical Center since this evening. She knows Josef."

Beth raised an eyebrow and a pointed look at Josef, wondering exactly in what capacity Josef knows Anne.

Josef started "Annelise was one of my freshies several years ago, she was fantastic, but different than the others, wanted to accomplish something with herself, instead of just obtaining admirers of her body. I helped finance her through her schooling"

Mick continued "Anne got her Bachelor's Degree in biology after she stopped seeing Josef, she probably met me through Josef on a few occasions, enough to know I was a private investigator and through association with Josef, someone she could trust."

Ryder jumped in "Anne got her Master's Degree in animal/environmental relationships, but was known to often lend her expertise to others in the same field."

Beth takes another sip from her glass "Well, that answers why Anne chose Mick, a relief, what do we know about her relationship with Tom Cudelli, I'm starting to doubt she was simply a temporary secretary."

Mick starts, "Thomas Cudelli is one of the leaders in global warming and its affect on marine biology, and is CEO of the company SphereBioEcology, his company headquarters are just outside of San Francisco, but they have research centers throughout North America: Ensenada, Mexico; outside of LA; Houston, Texas; Bar Harbor, Maine, Tamarindo, Costa Rica; Hanalei, Hawaii, just to name a few."

Ryder has more input "We haven't found any record of him in Northern America for a few weeks, but we can trace his credit card activity to the British Virgin Islands and then to a company in Ecuador."

We can't find an address for a home for him, nor can we trace a phone"

Beth shakes her head slowly "So, its essentially impossible to find him, even though we know what business he works at".

Mick shares her grim look "I'm not sure, Beth. I need to get over to their headquarters to talk with the people, find out what I can't find with Ryder's help, but I'm not sure I want to subject you to traveling while you're so sun-sensitive still, and I have no idea what to do with the baby."

Beth finishes her drink, and looks at Josef then Ryder. "Is there any more information you two will come up with in short matter?"

Ryder looks dejected as he tells Beth that he's gotten pretty much as much information as he can get on Tom and Anne.

Beth looks over at Mick. "Mick, we need to go take a walk together and talk"

"But the baby?" Mick asks with genuine concern, he definitely has few parenting skills, but he still worries about children without their parents.

"Sara, at the moment is enchanted with Alisa. Alisa happens to be sleeping and should for a few more hours. Even though Josef dislikes humans, I think we can trust him with one twelve-pound infant for a short while without him finding a unique way to dispose of her."

Beth walks down the hall to Josef's bedroom, where Sara is reading a book on American culture, leaning up against the headboard of the bed, while the baby continues to sleep. "Mick and I need to chat, is it okay if I leave you with babysitting duties for about an hour? Alisa should keep sleeping" Beth whispers quietly.

Sara grins and nods her head, then looks back down at her book.

Beth leaves the bedroom, and puts her arm through Mick's own. "Shall we go?" she asks sweetly.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: Chapter's 4 and 5 were both pretty short, so I'm putting them up relatively together. Thank you for reading.

Moonlight is not owned by me. The characters who are obviously Moonlight characters, are Moonlight characters. As for everything else... the names are made up,

- I owe eternal gratitude to ErisFury and her story "The Fledgling" for a background. - and the stories, well, they're pretty much made up too.

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Chapter 5: A deep discussion 

Beth and Mick walk into the airy moonlit evening, following one of the few ambling paths by Josef's home. They're quiet for a few moments, each having their own thoughts.

"Whenever I have a lot on my mind, I find that taking a walk helps me clear my thoughts" Beth starts.

Mick smiles, he knows this about her well, he's watched her and followed her on many of these walks to clear her thoughts over the last 20 years.

"You," she continues, "Need to go to San Francisco, San Mateo, Oakland, Menlo Park, wherever, and find out all you can from Tom's staff, and I presume his home is nearby. The baby needs to be taken care of, and since I'm still sun sensitive and may not be able to handle staying at a hotel for however long it takes, I'd like to take care of Alisa here in LA. I can stay at our loft or head to the Victorian cottage Josef had renovated last year, it has a beautiful backyard that I think Alisa would enjoy.

"How are you going to handle an infant with an entirely different sleep schedule than your own?" Mick asks, concerned.

Beth grins "Well, I won't bring the baby into the subzero with me, if that's what you're asking. We'll adjust, and if I need to find a professional nanny or sitter if this whole expedition takes too long, then I'll cross that bridge as I get to it."

Beth turns serious, "I'd also like to take Alisa to see her mother at the hospital, it may bring peace to Anne to know that not only is Saint Mick going to save the day, but that her precious daughter is being cared for and that that's the primary concern along with finding Tom Cudelli."

Mick smiles, leave it to Beth to take Anne's fears into consideration.

They turn down another ambling path by Josef's home.

Mick finally has the courage to ask some questions he wasn't sure how to ask.

"Beth," he started "When I became a private investigator, my duty was to help people. This is my duty, and I feel guilty getting you involved. This isn't a case where you can tackle it by my side. I'm grateful, more so than you will ever know, that you are comfortable with babies and want to help care for little Alisa, but this isn't your burden."

Beth wraps her arms around Mick. "I love you for being so caring, but this is a situation where I want to help, and I may be even more adept at some parts of this case than you are. I want you to find little Alisa's father, and you simply can't do that with a baby in tow."

Mick kisses her on the cheek and strokes her back gently, lost in thought. "You're really willing to do this, for the case, for the baby, and for me?"

Beth leans into Mick's embrace. "Yes, Mick. For better, for worse, and for whatever crazy things happen, I'm here for you"

Mick holds her close, "Is there anything else we need to talk about, darling?"

Beth grins "No, I came out here to convince you that what you really needed to do was get yourself up to the Bay Area, and what I really needed to do was stay out here and care for little Alisa. I thought this was going to take awhile to convince you, and I figured it was best to get away from the house in the event I needed to resort to screaming and shouting or driving a stake through you to get you to see things my way."

Mick continues to stroke her back, "You'd never stake me, Beth"

Beth looks up at him and smiles sweetly, her eyes flashing silver for just a flicker of a second. "I've never had a really good reason; I hope you never give me a really good reason."

Beth switches gears. "Lets head back to the house. I'm just a little concerned how Sara's going to respond if Alisa wakes up, the concept of infant formula and microwaves is a generation or two before Sara's time and I don't want to put her up to the test if I don't have to."


	6. Chapter 6

_Authots Note: Moonlight does not belong to me. I invited myself to tea._

* * *

_Chapter 6: Awakening the princess_

Mick and Beth return to the house, and hear little Alisa starting to whimper. Beth dashes up the stairs and over to Josef's room. Sara is standing, holding the small whimpering girl, looking slightly petrified herself.

"Beth, I'm so sorry, I'm not sure what I did wrong" Sara is close to tears.

Sarah holds out the baby to Beth, who wraps a blanket around the little one, and holds her close to her chest.

"What happened, sweetheart?" Beth asks to Sara.

"Well, she opened up her eyes and started making baby noises, and when she saw me she started smiling, so I thought I'd pick her up. I picked her up carefully, holding her head carefully and singing softly to her. She seemed to like this for a few minutes she was laughing, then she started whimpering, I'm not sure what changed."

Beth gives Sara a hug. "You did everything just right. This is just what babies do. Judging by the way she's sucking on my knuckle, she's probably hungry again"

Josef had been standing in the doorway and laughed softly. "I hear that newborn humans are easier than newborn vampires, they eat a lot, they sleep a lot, but at least they don't fly into violent rages"

Beth grins, remembering her own newborn vampire moments, and remembering a few choice moments of Sara too.

"You very well may be right, Josef, but vampire newborns are definitely more animated and creative,"

"What do you feed an infant? I doubt we have tinned milk anyplace in the house." Sarah asks, genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of the little girl she's watched over for the last few hours.

"In the last 50 years they invented this fantastic thing called 'infant formula', mixes with water, babies seem to love it." Beth walks over to the discarded diaper bag and grabs the formula container and a clean bottle. Remembering the last time she needed to feed little Alisa, she grabs the infant thermometer again. "Want to watch?" she asks to Sara.

"I have no idea what you're about to do, but I'm game" Sara replies.

"Lets go over to the Freshie Wing, I know there's a microwave over there" Beth says, handing the bottle and canister of formula to Sara. They reached the kitchen area of the freshie wing, and Beth moved Alisa to her shoulder, where the infant started sucking her fingers and nuzzled into Beth's shoulder.

"First, we take the bottle and we fill it with water, water from the tap is just fine" Beth murmurs.

Sara looks at the different measurements and cartoons on the bottle, then looks at Beth.

"Fill it to the '8oz' mark, somewhere near the top of the bottle" Beth smiles, wondering what on earth bottles looked like in the 1950's, if they even existed.

Sara turns on the faucet and fills the bottle to the measurement.

"Now," Beth says, "Take that canister of formula and open it, inside somewhere is a scoop. The formula takes one scoop for every two ounces of formula, so you need to put four scoops in the water to make 8 ounces of formula."

Sara opens up the canister, and adds the appropriate scoops to the water in the bottle, and after hesitating a moment, puts the top on the bottle and shakes it. "What now?" she asks.

"Now we warm the bottle in the microwave. First we take the top off the bottle, and put the bottle in the microwave. If we used cold water, 45 seconds on high should be a good start." Beth pauses while Sara fumbles with the buttons, giving her space to figure it out herself.

After the microwave is started, Beth continues "When my sister's kids were little, I could tell the temperature of the bottle by putting a few drops on my inner wrist. I realized tonight that my body temperature is so different, that I need to use a thermometer to make sure that its 100-102 degrees, the perfect temperature for an infant's bottle."

The microwave beeps, startling Alisa who starts to whimper once again. Beth puts the baby thermometer into the bottle, after pulling it out of the microwave. A perfect temperature, Beth smiles. Sara screws the nipple onto the bottle.

"Do you want to feed her?" Beth asks to Sara.

Sarah's eyes brighten with excitement, then cloud slightly "I won't hurt her, will I?"

"No, you won't. I'll make sure that won't happen, but you're a very gentle gal all on your own. Your call, would you prefer to sit on the couch in Josef's office, or would you like to sit on the sofas here in the living room of the freshie wing?" Beth asks.

"Even though I'm accustomed to the whole home, I really feel more comfortable away from the freshies. I find them distracting sometimes." Sara confesses.

"Alright, Josef's office it is." Beth grins, wondering how Josef will react to the human intrusion of this little girl having a meal in his private office.

The girls take all baby-food-making-paraphernalia back over the diaper bag, Beth grabs a burp cloth, and Beth holding infant, and Sara holding the bottle, the girls walk into Josef's office.

"Hi guys" Beth says brightly to the bewildered duo, "what happened to Ryder?"

"He had to head back to his own office" Mick says. "We're having drinks and contemplating the world, deep stuff. Guy stuff"

"What are you doing?" Josef asks, as Sara settles onto the couch holding the bottle, and tucking one foot beneath her.

Beth smiles brightly "I just learned that Sara never gave a bottle to an infant, so we're taking your spotless leather couch and we're going to use it for target practice."

Josef groans as both women giggle. "Leave it to the dynamic duo" he mutters under his breath, but surprises everyone in the room by setting down his glass and sitting on the couch near Sara.

"Comfortable, Sara?" Beth asks.

Sara nods, a beautiful smile on her face.

Beth hands the infant to Sara, similar to before, where the infant's head is supported by the crook of Sara's elbow. Alisa turns her wide blue eyes up to Sara and grins, then looks over to Josef in his business suit, and grins again. Josef finds himself smiling back at this silly baby.

"Now", Beth says comfortingly, "you take the bottle and put it in her mouth, she knows what to do from there."

Sara holds the bottle nipple up to the baby's lips, and they part, and she starts sucking excitedly, and she reaches up and starts twirling her finger through her own wispy hair.

"I didn't realize that babies were so sweet" Sara gushes. "If I had only known, maybe I would have found a man wanting to settle down and have a few of these babies ourselves." She grins and takes a sideways look at Josef to see his reaction.

Josef looks at Sara, shocked that she would so flippantly disregard her heartfelt desires to have an eternity with him, and want to simply be some human baby-making machine.

Sara catches his eye and winks "I'm just kidding, sweetheart. This is fun, but I can't imagine bringing up one of my own, ever. My eternity is with you, that's never going to be in question."

Sara looks down at the baby, realizing that her eyes were still open, looking around, and that her bottle was nearly finished. "What am I supposed to do next?" She asks to Beth.

"When she finishes her bottle, she needs to be burped, to get any air bubbles out of her tummy." Beth explains.

As the baby took the last of her bottle, Beth helped transition the infant to a sitting position in Sara's lap, and shows Sara how to pat the baby's back gently. The little girl coos and giggles for a few seconds, then lets out a loud burp.

The little girl was contentedly sitting on Sara's lap, looking at Sara, looking to Josef, and looking over to Beth, smiling and flirting.

Josef, surprising everyone, kept grinning at this little girl whenever she made eye contact.

Suddenly an unpleasant odor starts wafting through Josef's office, and the baby girl starts fussing.

"Oh god, I forgot this part about humans" said Josef, as he stands up and walks out of the room.

"Whats wrong?" Sara asks, naively.

"She pooped. Nothings wrong, it just smells particularly intense to our heightened senses." Beth says reassuringly  
.

Beth picks up the ripe-smelling little girl, and takes her over to the diaper bag and fishes out the wipes and a fresh diaper, and walks over to the freshie wing, going to the same unused room where she and Sara had invented the baby bed, and lay a thick towel on the carpet. She changes the little girl, much easier this time now that the little one wasn't sucking on her own toes. She isn't quite sure what to do with the offending diaper, so she picks up the little girl, goes back to the diaper bag, finding an empty plastic bag and wraps the diaper in that, setting it outside the front door so it won't odor up the house. Going back through the diaper bag, she realizes a small problem that's going to be a big problem in about three diaper changes. The little girl needs more diapers, and a few more clothes probably wouldn't hurt, not to mention an actual place to sleep.

Beth, holding the now cooing little girl, walks into Josef's office. Sara has found the book she was reading earlier, and the men are in deep discussion about the vampire imitators, stalking the LA streets.

Beth sits down beside Sara, settling the little girl into her own lap. Alisa looks up at Sara, smiles, then yawns and her eyes start to drift closed.

"Are you up for a shopping spree, Sara?" Beth asks. "This little girl is going to need some supplies in short order, or I'll be a supremely miserable caregiver."

* * *

_Author's Note: This is where I humblely ask you what you think of what I've written. Anything you like? Anything you don't like?_


	7. Chapter 7

_Author's Note: Moonlight is not mine. I'd have much more fun if it was. Also things that are not mine: WalMart._

_Again, ErisFury's work "The Fledgling" is the backdrop of characters and relationships._

_I seem to have some trouble uploading anything containing the number "7", so I apologize as its taken me a few days to sort out my issues._

* * *

Chapter 7: Preparing for a shopping trip 

Sara looks up at the clock on the wall "Beth, hon, its two in the morning. I don't know much about baby shopping, but most stores are closed in general. They just don't seem to want to cater to a vampire society tey know nothing about."

Beth massages her forehead for a moment, odd times like these used to give her a headache when she was a human, but she's found that rubbing her forehead is just a habit she can't give up when she starts herself into a situation more than she's sure she can handle.

"You've never been to WalMart, 24 hours a day, discount prices, whatever on earth we need and then some" Beth says, knowing full well that out of everything that Josef has shared with Sara, that WalMart or any discount store is probably not high on the list.

Sara seems surprised at the mere thought of a store like WalMart. "It definitely doesn't sound like any boutique, but if it'll have things for the baby that we need, lets get going."

Beth turns to Mick, aware that Josef started making coughing noises about the point that she mentioned taking Sara to WalMart. "Mick, do you mind if Sara and I borrow your car to do a baby supply trip? I know you probably need to get back somewhere", her eyes flicker towards Josef and she grins coyly "I'm sure Josef would have no problem lending you the Aston Martin if you need to get around while we're gone."

Josef groans, while he generally allows himself to be chauffeured around as needed, he does have a soft spot for fast European cars and the Aston Martin is his newest toy. Mick gives a wicked grin to Josef. "Thank you Beth, I think Josef wouldn't mind parting with one of his mere fleet vehicles for an evening should I decide I urgently need to be somewhere."

Beth looks down at little Alisa, now fast asleep in her arms, then looks over at Sara, who is already putting on her coat and shoes. She suddenly feels like she's trying to orchestrate a battle she hasn't had to deal with in awhile. The last time she attacked WalMart in the middle of the night was with her sister, two carts, two screaming teething sleepy kids. She sighs softly. Thank goodness Anne didn't leave twins at Mick's doorstep, or Beth would be close to losing her sanity shortly.

Beth walks over to Alisa's car seat, straps her in and wraps her gently in a blanket, placing the stuffed giraffe in with her. Beth pulls her hair into a ponytail and walks to Josef's front closet, looking for a hat. Even though its been five years since her reported 'death', getting 'sighted' still hurts her in a way she could never share with anyone, even Mick. She hopes that her family doesn't cling onto these reported 'sightings', torturing themselves with the hope of all hopes, that she isn't really gone. In Josef's front closet, she locates a black ball cap with an Oakland Raiders emblem, hoping any controversy will stem around the hat instead of her.

She takes the infant seat, tosses her own gym bag over her shoulder, and picks up the diaper bag, and walks over to the car, Mick walks behind her and unlocks it with the buttons. Beth carefully buckles the little girl in, and puts the diaper bag on the floor of the car, then places her gym bag on the far side. As she stands up, Mick wraps her in a hug and kisses her softly, while handing her his car keys. She turns around to face him, and returns the kiss. "Thanks-" she started, suddenly not sure how to express her gratitude, his accepting her help, his lending the car. Her eyes flicker with gratitude "Thanks for everything."

He wraps her into a passionate kiss, that could have gone further, had Sara not shown up. Mick gives her one last kiss. "Thanks for the excuse to use the Aston Martin, I'll get better time with that thing headed up to the Bay Area. I'll be heading to our place to grab a few things, and I'll probably head up tonight, getting there by morning so I can talk to Tom Cudelli's staff and coworkers first thing. I'll give you a call when I know what's going on. You're welcome to keep the kid at our place, but you may be more comfortable at the cottage."

Beth wraps her arms around him "I love you, Mick. This doesn't sound like a dangerous case, but be careful."

Beth kisses him goodbye, then walks around to the drivers seat, noting that Sara has already buckled up in the passenger seat. She starts the engine, adjusts the mirrors, makes sure the GPS volume is on low, and sets the machine to navigate them to the first Super WalMart between Josef's home and Mick's loft.

She then starts driving down the driveway, looking forward to an impromptu shopping trip with her friend.

* * *

_This is a short chapter. Next one is longer. I love to hear your thoughts an opinions_


	8. Chapter 8

_If Moonlight were mine, I'd be having a lot more fun, but alas, its not, so I'm not_

_WalMart is also not mine. Adding to the things that are not mine, Baby Einstein DVDs were not my creation, but I swear by those things. Especially for twins!_

* * *

Chapter 8: The Adventures of WalMart 

As they begin their drive, Sara turns and faces Beth "So, what exactly is this MallMart thing anyway?"

"WalMart," Beth gently corrected. "It's a staple to many blue collar families across the USA now. Its like a discount store warehouse, where the low prices are caused because they sell in such high volume. This chain of stores, and other chains of discount stores, have been slowly but surely putting smaller companies out of business over the last few decades, because of their sheer volume of sales, they can undercut the profit margins that the smaller companies require just to make a small profit to be able to feed their own families.

"I generally boycott WalMart myself, I'm not a fan of the way they treat their store employees, nor the way they treat their customers. Its hard not to feel like cattle when one has to wait in line for 30 minutes just to check out. But, they are open 24 hours a day, and its one of the few places I know of where we can get everything we need at this hour."

"What is it exactly that we need?" Sara asks in complete innocence.

"You said you don't have much child experience, and in the last couple of decades, the junk that people need to care for children has expanded exponentially. I think Anne believed that Mick would be able to deliver Alisa to her father this evening. To name a few things, we need to get Alisa some more clothes, she only has another set of pajamas in her diaper bag, and a clean undershirt. Alisa will probably need a few more bottles and another canister of formula. I need to get a portable crib for her so she has a safe place to sleep and a few more blankets because my home is a little colder than an infant is accustomed to. I want to get a baby swing to help entertain her and some baby music and DVDs and toys to help keep her entertained if I can't always be with her. Mainly though, we need to get wipes, rash crème and diapers."

"Diapers", Sara asks in genuine surprise "They have a 24 hour diaper service at this store too?"

"Oh man", Beth isn't sure she can explain the 50 year evolution of diapers briefly or accurately. "Nowadays, most all stores sell them, they've changed and they're a little more hi-tech than the cloth diapers and plastic pants you may be more familiar with."

Beth pulls into the overlit WalMart parking lot, and Sara and Beth both instinctively shield their eyes from the bright lights. Beth pulls smoothly into a parking space.

Beth lets out a soft sigh, almost inaudible. Sara turns to look at her, "Whats wrong?" she asks to her best friend.

"One of the hardest things about being a vampire, is having to leave your family behind. I know your situation is a little different, but for me, I never got to say goodbye, and my whole family thinks I burned to death in a fire five years ago. My niece and nephew are eleven years old now, twins. When they were really little, they were a handful, and I'm not even sure I can count how many nights I'd be helping care for them and my sister Ellen and I would take Erica and Elliot, the twins, on a trip to WalMart because we needed diapers, formula or just a break in the action.

I saw them once at the cemetery a few years ago, I was looking for my father's grave, I guess I just needed to talk, and there were Erica and Elliot, with Ellen, leaving flowers by my grave. I couldn't believe how much they had grown, how healthy they were. In the fire I lost my entire family, not because they died, but because for all intents and purposes, I died. Josef, Mick and you have become my replacement family, and while Alisa is a sweet little girl, she just reminds me of Erica in so many many ways and I find that I miss my own family so much sometimes."

A tear slid down Beth's cheek, and Sara brushed it away with her fingers, before leaning over and hugging her best friend tightly.

"I'm sorry it has to hurt so much. I know it was a shock for me to find that in fifty and some years, that so many of my own family had died, I understand some of that lonely feeling that you have. I may not ever take Ellen's place, but in so many ways you've become the sister I've never had, and I hope that the same way feels for you sometimes."

Beth dabs at her eyes with a tissue, and does her best to muster up a smile. "Lets get shopping for this little girl. Mick very well may be back tomorrow or a couple days with the girl's father, but she can't keep sleeping in dresser drawers."

The women get out of the car, and Beth goes around the car and unbuckles the car seat belt from around the infant seat. She hands the diaper bag to Sara, and the two girls walk inside. Inside, Sara looks around, finally letting her eyes adjust to the bright warehouse.. Sara giggles, and Beth, while getting the car seat into the cart, looks over to see what Sara is up to.

"Its like Bloomingdales mixed with the sporting-goods store" Sara laughs.

Beth chuckles herself, mainly wondering what Bloomingdales must have been like to a young Sara.

Beth steers them toward the baby section, and Sara is stunned, "Babies need all this stuff?!"

"No, not hardly but commercialism would have every parent believe that they're a failure as a parent if they don't have the latest gizmo here or there. Lets start with the staples… Alisa drinks a common brand of formula, lets get another canister of powder, just in case"

Sara walks down the infant formula aisle and looks back over at Beth, completely confused and bewildered. Beth, still over at the cart, reaches into the diaper bag and tosses the can to Sara. It's a perfect catch, even from 30 feet away. "Find something that looks exactly like that one."

Meanwhile, Beth selects a few more bottles, a bottle brush-style cleaner, and tosses in a couple packages of pacifiers. She sees baby shampoo and lotion and puts that in the basket too. Sara triumphantly brings back two canisters of infant formula, the original, and one identical in label. She tosses the half-used container back into the diaper bag, and sets the new canister in the cart.

"Okay, diapers are the next hot topic" says Beth, as they turn the corner to the aisle with diapers.

"I'll find the pins" offers Sara, and starts walking down the aisle.

Beth swallows her giggle, she's not even certain that WalMart would sell diaper pins, but Sara sure gets bonus points for trying.

In the meantime, Beth selects a package of disposable diapers in a size she hopes to be nearly correct, finds more wipes, selects more rash crème.

Sara comes back a few minutes later, perplexed "They don't sell diaper pins."

Beth smiles and gives her friend a quick hug "They also don't sell cloth diapers or plastic pants, so don't worry too much about it."

Sara looks even more perplexed, "What is it exactly, then, that infants are diapered with?"

Beth realizes that the best explanation is a show-and-tell demonstration. She walks over to the endcap of the aisle where there are ragdolls on sale and picks one up, returning to the cart. Beth reaches into the diaper bag and pulls out a diaper and hands it to Sara for inspection. "This is a disposable diaper, no fabric, doesn't leak, no pins, probably has more technology in absorbency than anything else in existence."

Sara picks up the disposable diaper and regards it, turning it around and trying to figure out how it must work.

She looks completely bemused as she hands the diaper back to Beth.

"I'm not done yet with show and tell" Beth says, and she holds up the rag doll.

"You use the disposable cleaning wipes to clean the baby, and once the baby is clean, you unfold the diaper like this, set the child's bottom in the diaper, and use the adhesive tabs like this to secure the diaper closed." Beth demonstrates with the doll.

"And these disposable things, do they work?" Sara asks incredulously.

"Better than the cloth diapers" Beth assures her, "Plus, when the baby is done with it, you throw it away; adding to our community landfills, but completely making a diaper service unnecessary, or worse, having to clean cloth diapers at home."

Sara makes a face, obviously sickened at the thought of contemplating the fate of cloth diapers.

"Okay, we're finished with diapers" Beth says, somewhat relieved, but making mental note to have Sara watch herself change the baby girl a few times if Sara ever has an interest of doing it herself. "Now we need to find some big-ticket items, like a portable playpen and a infant rocker."

Beth pushes the cart to the next aisle, and realizes that there's more junk here than ever before. Baby walkers, baby strollers, baby jumpers, baby swings. Sara looks in amazement before asking if she can go looking at baby clothes, a less daunting task more suited to Sara's tastes. "Alisa probably fits size three to six months" Beth says to Sara as she rounds the far corner, confident that Sara's ears picked up the comment.

Beth finds a portable crib and stows it in the bottom of the cart, and finds a battery operated baby swing. She locates a baby monitor, and tosses it into the cart. She doesn't think she has much need for the rest of the extraneous junk for sale, but she looks on the other side and finds a few more things she will need. She finds a couple more thermometers for checking the temperature of the bottles, a bottle of infant ibuprofen, two packages of onesies with long sleeves, socks and a warm hat. She selects two packages of snap up jammies/rompers, and a few washcloths and burp rags.

She pushes the cart down the aisle to see what Sara's up to.

"Look what I found!" exclaims Sarah, holding up a little sailor's sundress, complete with a ribbon for her hair and little socks with anchors on it. She also holds up a corduroy pink sleeveless dress with a white button up shirt with embroidery that goes underneath.

"You have quite an eye for style, lets find some warm tights to go with the dresses, and maybe some barrettes for her hair. She doesn't have much hair, but we ought to dress her nicely when she meets her daddy."

She and Sara push the cart over to the section where the baby barrettes are, and pick out a pink set to match the dress.

"I'm going to find tights and some warm blankets for the little one, would you like to find some toys?" Beth asks.

Beth pushes the cart over to the accessories and finds some ruffly tights,, a pair of white mary-jane shoes to finish the outfit. She finds the baby blankets and picks out a few, remembering belatedly that she needs a sheet or two for the portable crib, and tosses a few in the cart, then goes looking on the toy aisle for Sara.

"How's it coming along?" she asks to Sara.

"There are so many many more toys for children nowadays, when I was small, plastic toys were newest thing, most toys were made of wood or cloth." Sara replies, in total awe.

Beth spies some infant music, and also puts a few Baby Einstien DVDs in the cart, hoping they'll have the same magic spell they had on the twins.

Sara selects a worm-shaped stuffed toy that lights up when pressed, and a small pink teddy bear. Beth selects a mobile of bunny ballerinas, an aquarium-imitation toy, and a few fabric blocks made of different fabrics with different textures, and a water-teething.

"Anything that we're missing?" Beth asks, mainly to herself, as she silently inventories the heap that's threatening to overtake their cart.

"I think you bought nearly everything possible, considering its just for a few days tops" says Sara.

"There's one more thing I forgot" Beth pushes the cart back to the little first aid section and picks out a pair of baby fingernail clippers.

"I do not want to find out how quickly her fingernails grow, or what happens if she accidentally scratches one of us and tastes our blood. There are some things that just can't be explained to a pediatrician."

Sara looks somber for a quick moment as she glances at the still sleeping and very angelic looking Alisa, then giggles. "Leave it to Beth to contemplate every possible scenario."

As Beth pushes the cart, and the girls make their way to the checkout, Beth quietly murmurs "Thank you, I'm really glad I had you along."

They go through checkout in record time, and Beth pulls her wallet out of the diaper bag where she'd stowed it for this trip, and puts everything on plastic.

Sara is chattering about the history book she's read and how things have changed in the last 50 years, and Beth is laughing and some of the funny remarks she makes, that they don't notice the four guys that follow them as they leave the store and walk towards the car. They're nearly at the car when Beth realizes that there are humans behind them and if 'sinister' was a smell, she definitely smelled that too. Very quietly, knowing that only Sara will hear her she says 'we've got a problem, take the baby back into the store, she'll be safe with a clerk, and tell the security guard that we need help, I can handle this, you stay safe.

Beth turns and confronts these young Hispanic men. "What do you want?" She yells loudly.

"Me and me ese wants a date", the smaller man gestures to his friend, the large musclebound man.

"You want do to WHAT?" Beth is making the best commotion she can, and on cue, Sara darts off with the baby.

The largest man roughly puts a hand on Beth's shoulder, saying "You come with us, almija"

Beth feels the hair on the back of her neck raise in her rage, and feels herself vamping out. She reaches and grabs the musclehead's hand, and uses his arm as leverage to send him flying in the air, breaking his leg from the sound of the snap when he landed, not to mention that many of the small bones of his hand will need a surgeon's expertise.

"Puta!" he exclaims as he clutches his broken hand.

The third man pulls out a knife, and brings it toward Beth, either to slash her or intimidate her, Beth doesn't quite have time to guess Beth raises her left arm defensively, and the knife sinks deeply into the flesh of her lower arm. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Sara coming back, Sara saw one thing that Beth had missed. The little man had pulled out a gun, from sideways Sara tackles the smallest man, and the two go to the ground.

"Chupamela!"

Beth looks at her assailant, pulls the knife from her arm, and as she tosses the knife with one arm, she slams her fist into the man's jaw, knocking him out cold.

Beth hears the gun fire twice, and realizes almost immediately that Sara has been shot, she can smell it.

"Aw shit" Beth thinks to herself, "all bets are off now".

The fourth man starts running away. Beth is momentarily glad, because she would have killed him. Beth sees that Sara has been wounded and is using the last of her strength to keep the gun from being pointed at herself again. Beth reaches in and turns the gun away to pull it out of his clutches, right as he pulls the trigger a second time, effectively shooting himself in the head. Beth looks at the man's blood and grey matter already starting to stain the asphalt.

Now that the major threats are over, Beth looks around, then looks at Sara. She's been shot twice in the chest, and needs blood. Sara needs Josef, Beth doesn't know what to do. She picks up her friend and places her in the passenger seat of Mick's car, then runs back into the store, scoops up little Alisa in her carrier, attempts to mumble thanks for watching the baby, and heads back out to the car. Beth quickly buckles the infant seat into the car, then looks over to Sara.

"How are you doing, sweetheart?" Sara's eyes open, and she's more alert than Beth had given her credit for.

"I feel like I've been shot in the chest, aside from that, its been a great shopping trip"

Sara laughs softly.

"I need to get you back to Josef" Beth says, still not believing that gunshot wounds to the chest can't be fatal to the undead.

"Hon, I'll be just fine, a good drink and I'll be good as new. Make sure that baby of yours is okay and get her damned stuff in the car."

Beth grins, her friend can be just as spirited as she is.

She pulls her cell phone out of the diaper bag, then opens the trunk of the car, and picks up the entire basket and dumps the contents into the trunk. She'll organize it some other time.

She closes the trunk and gets into the driver's seat. She has just left the parking lot and pulled onto the main road, when she sees a marked police cruiser coming at full speed from the opposite direction and pull into the parking lot, tires squealing.

Beth just shakes her head, then pulls out her phone and dials Josef.

"Hey Blondie" he answers, she can almost hear the smile on his face, teasing her with her least-enjoyed nickname.

Now isn't the time for fun and games.

"Josef, I have a problem, its Sara."

Instantly the smile is wiped off his face, replaced by a serious tone filled with fear. "Whats wrong, Beth?"

"Sara's been shot, in the chest I think. At first she seemed dazed, but now she seems a little more alert, but I don't know."

"Tell Josef I'm fine and suffering from a case of my-best-friend-doesn't-think-vampires-are-invincible"

Josef laughs, hearing Sara's comment himself, and realizing that things like bullets won't take down Sara.

His voice becomes serious again "Beth, bring Sara home"

"Of course I'm bringing Sara home right now. I had been considering taking her on a cruise to the Bahamas this moment, but for now I think we'll have to settle for simply going home." Beth tries to bring some humor in the situation, but right now she isn't altogether sure that she isn't going to cry.


	9. Chapter 9

_Moonlight and the legal fun and games therin, are not my own fun and games. I just manipulate the characters to write small stories._

_Once again, a heartfelt thank you to ErisFury and her permission to use "The Fledgling" as a backdrop, I strongly recommend anyone reading my story to read that one too (its a million times better aswell)_

_Thank you also to everyone who has read this and taken the time to give me feedback and critiques, I am becoming a better writer because of you._

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Chapter 9: Back at Josef's

Beth drove back to Josef's in record time. Josef and Karl were both outside waiting for them, it looked like Josef had been pacing.

Beth didn't even have the car engine in park, and Josef already had Sara's door open, picking her up to take her inside. Sara lifted her head and placed it against Josef's chest. She was fatigued, too fatigued to argue that she didn't need to be carried. Beth turned off the car, then went around and unbuckled the infant seat. Alisa, apparently, slept through the whole ordeal. Peacefully.

She walked in the front door, and not entirely sure what to do with the human infant, put her in the still-vacant room in the freshie wing, still asleep in her car seat.

Beth walked toward Josef's office, but was met by the door to the freshie wing by Karl. Karl touched her on the shoulder and told her that Sara was going to be fine, but didn't stop her from going forward to check for herself. She opened the door and found Sara having a fresh drink, a muscular man with chestnut hair leaning over her, and Sara's arms could be seen around him, easing them both into a comfortable meal. Beth had been introduced to him, but already forgot his name. Sara's color was already beginning to come back back. Karl was right, she was going to be fine. Sitting on his executive chair, watching Sara, was Josef, and as Beth walked in the door, Josef stood up and ushered her outside the office.

Once outside of the office, Josef grabbed Beth by her shoulder and roughly turned her to face him, his eyes flashing sliver.

"How could you have let this happen to my Sara?" he raged. " How could you have just let her get hurt without stopping it? Why didn't you…"

Josef trailed off, realizing that his hands were on Beth's shoulders and he was shaking her as though she were not much more than a rag doll. He realizes, a split second too late, he probably just said the most damning things possible, to one of the people who truly cares about Sara. He set the blonde back on her feet, and releases his grasp.

"I'm so sorry Beth, I lost my temper" Josef pales at his own recognition at becoming so close to harming his own creation, and it finally registers to him that Beth has been injured. Not badly, but the scent of her blood is present and undeniable.

Beth's fury shows in her eyes, as they start to gleam silver. Josef notices that her eye whites are slightly yellow, and she's paler than she should be. She takes a deep breath, habit from her living years, but it still has the ability to help her see a little more clearly. Beth's eyes return blue, and she says quietly, "If you think I would intentionally put Sara in harm's way, then you're wasting my time because you have no idea how much she means to me. Now, if you'll excuse me, Sara isn't the only one who managed to sustain some injury or another while saving ourselves and the little human."

She turns on heel, and walks down the hallway, down the stairs and into the quasi-formal living room with the bar, to the hidden fridge where Josef keeps the prepackaged blood for Mick and other guests who prefer their blood not dripping from the source. She knows that she won't heal as fast than with fresh blood, but her injuries are rather slight, and she is strongly opposed to any help from Josef, direct or indirect, at the moment.

She sits down by the bar, pouring her drink. She expects Josef to have gone back to be with Sara, but she hears him, senses him standing in the doorway. She finishes her drink, and finally bothers to assess the damage. Her sweater is bloodstained, hers on the sleeve and Sara's on the front when she carried her. She inspects the ragged wound to her arm, it still smarts, but is closing nicely. She wishes she could say the same about the ragged tear in her sweater. Turning the opposite direction of where Josef is standing, she walks outside to the patio, then to Mick's car, slipping off her sweater, and when she looks down at her t-shirt and smells Sarah's blood all over it, she takes that off too. She doesn't even consider herself standing half naked by Josef's house, wearing only pants and a bra. She reaches into the back seat and finds her extra set of clothes, pulling on grey tank top and a favorite slate blue sweater. She walks back into the house, she smells Josef upstairs, and she can sense the agony he's put himself in. She feels a little sorry for him, but right now, her resentment overrides her own emotions. She walks over to the freshie wing, to the mostly unoccupied second room, and takes little Alisa from her car seat, and wrapping her in her own blanket, then taking her outside. Back at Mick's car, she presses the key into the trunk lock, springing the trunk open, and finds another thicker, warmer blanket and the warm hat she picked out for the little girl. She gently places the hat, looking like an infant girl summer bonnet, except made of fleece, on Alisa's head, tying the bow one-handed, before wrapping the little girl in the second blanket. The evening chill isn't anything serious, but Beth has no body warmth to be able to share with the little girl; and while the infant is healthy, Beth doesn't want her to get chilled. She moves the little girl to her shoulder, as she closes the car trunk. Beth started ambling down a path by Josef's home, she almost smiles when she realizes that this is the second time in five hours she's done this same thing.

She ambles down a path for several minutes, sorting out her thoughts, before Beth finally opens her mouth.

"Oh, Alisa," she murmurs "Its only been a few hours and it already seems like things are going wrong."

She realizes she's just talking; the little girl definitely isn't an active listener. She takes a deep breath and continues "I know how much Josef loves Sara. When I saw her hurt, I thought she was going to die. To heck with the 'vampires are immortal' thing, I thought she would really die. I love Sara too, she's been the only female in my life for the last five years, she's my best friend, and while she'll never take Ellen's place, in some ways I love her as much as I would love my sister. I hope someday that you have a sister, Alisa, whether she's a blood relative or simply a close friend who you love so much you'd be willing to lay down your life for. If I had thought WalMart was a dangerous place, I certainly wouldn't have gone there myself, and I wouldn't have brought you or Sara there either.  
"I can't be Sara's protector, I know she's unique, irreplaceable, but she is a determined ambitious vampire. If I had known one of the guys had a gun, I would have killed all four of them right there on the spot, maybe it would have made me a monster just like some vampires turn into, but I care about Sara enough that I want to see her hurt probably as much as Josef wants to see her hurt. Which would be never, not even a little bit, ever.  
"I wish Josef didn't treat her like she was made of spun glass and demand that the entire planet treat her the same way. I wish Josef didn't carry this profound guilt of her for all of those years, and I wish also that Josef would let go of whatever guilt he has been carrying when he realized that he couldn't handle two fledglings and I turned to Mick. I'm still his, I don't really have the words to explain it, but he will always be my sire. It doesn't make him a failure, and I don't question my place in his world. I just don't understand why, when he knows that we're hurting or injured, that he feels guilty that his first concern is Sara. But it makes me angry when I don't even register to him, that all the strong emotions I feel for him as my sire, just seem to amount to nothing to him."

Beth, having her thoughts off her chest, continues walking the path for the next hour, now talking softly to the little girl about her own childhood and the different stars out in the sky. Alisa remains asleep in her arms.

When she finally returns to the house, She sees that Josef has put part of his cleaning staff to work cleaning the blood out of Mick's car. She smiles softly, a thoughtful gesture, but that doesn't compensate for his earlier actions.

She notices that the staff is removing the baby items and taking them inside, and her indignation simmers inside her. She certainly didn't consent to staying here, and at the moment, she doesn't really want to be under the same roof as Josef, the inconsiderate, presuming brute. She walks inside to the freshie wing, and sets the infant down on the bed, bolstering her with a pillow on either side.

She doesn't want to talk to Josef, but she goes upstairs to find Sara, to make sure she's doing okay. She walks to Josef's office, and realizes that while its dark, Josef is sitting in his executive chair. And he's crying. Beth inhales, but can only find a faint scent of Sara.

"Where's Sara?" she asks, not caring to get drawn into Josef's world at the moment.

"She went to rest in the freezer. She wanted to pass along a message to you, that she was sorry she managed to get herself shot, I told her that you may not want me as the messenger, but I agreed to tell you"

Josef certainly sounded contrite, hollow and exhausted, and Beth started to feel compassionate for the man, her best friend's husband, her own sire.

"Are you sure that Sara's okay?" Beth finally asked.

Josef stood up and walked up to Beth, "I promise you, she's okay, not even a mark on her when she went to bed. However, you and I need to talk. You can be as angry as you want at me, but we still need to talk."

He holds out his hand, and Beth surprises herself by taking his extended hand. He guides them both to the couch, and sits down. Beth hesitates a moment, then takes a seat beside him.

"First thing, things we're not going to argue about. Number one on that list is that I have my staff setting up all the baby stuff in the guest wing. You're staying here for today, and possibly until Mick gets back. No arguments."

"I'll agree to today, and only because the little girl will be waking up soon and if the staff has everything set up, it makes no sense to undo it and set it up somewhere else." Beth reluctantly says.

Josef continues, "Second thing we're not going to argue about. I'm truly sorry, Beth. I'm sorry I lost my temper, and I'm sorry that I vented my temper on you. I know you'd never put Sara in a position to get injured. I'm still afraid of losing her, even though she's been animated and totally Sara for the last five years, I still find myself terrified because of the last fifty. I never expected to have two fledglings at the same time, and I'm sorry that I've let you down in so many ways."

Beth leans into him, finding herself tired finally. Josef rests his head against her own, something he's done her entire vampire life.

"You're forgiven, Josef."

Josef smiles faintly, after listening to her rambling in the woods, he expected her to be filled with fury of some kind, but now she just sounds like the weary and exhausted young vampire she is.

He puts an arm around her, and she finds herself snuggling into his shoulder.

"What happened earlier tonight, are you okay?"

"I'm okay" Beth replies. I got stabbed in the arm, but I think I made a bigger impression when I pulled out the blade then cold cocked the bad guy."

Josef gives her a curious look. "What happened? I thought you were getting baby stuff, not looking for trouble."

"Everything was fine until we were leaving the store and these four guys told us we were going with them. One guy grabbed my shoulder and I guess I snapped, I probably crushed his hand, and sent him sailing a short distance on his backside. I told Sara to take the baby inside, and I was hoping she'd stay there. She came back right as one guy put a knife in my arm, and she tackled another guy who shot her. After I took out the knife from my arm, I looked at Sara and saw she was getting weaker, I went to take away the gun, and he pulled the trigger while it was pointed at his head. Everyone still conscious had split, and I put Sara in the car, got the baby, and we came here."

"Wow," Josef started "That's quite an adventure for just buying the baby some things."

"Definitely not how I wanted to spend my evening, I can assure you that. Can you show me which room you chose for the baby and I? I have Alisa in the freshie wing, but I can't keep her there, and I definitely can't sleep there."

Josef stands and reaches out his hand for Beth, and she takes it and stands herself. He puts an arm around her shoulder and leads her, not to the freshie wing, but to another wing of the house, the wing designed for guests of the non-human influence. Beth wonders why he didn't choose the guest house, the usual location where Beth and Mick stay when they spend time at Josef's home.

"I thought Sara might like to know that you and the baby are close" Josef says, as though that explains why they're as close as possible to Josef and Sara.

"I'm sure that's the only reason, Josef." Beth replies, not fooled for a second. Whenever something happens to his close friends, he likes to have them as near as possible. Perhaps he finds peace in knowing they're safe, perhaps the reasoning sits within something much deeper.

Josef gives her a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile, and places his arm around her shoulder protectively.

Josef leads her to the first suite in the wing, and Beth draws a breath in surprise. The bedroom furniture was all deep mahogany, with dark green covers on the bed and a few dark green and gold throw rugs over the black marble floor. The black marble led up a few stairs to the bathroom, with a deep tub, a separate shower. There are dual sinks on a long counter, and a requisite toilet tucked in the corner by the shower. The cabinetwork was done in the same mahogany wood as the bedroom, and Beth opened one narrow closet, finding it full of white fluffy towels. She turns to look at Josef, who chuckled at the expression on her face.

"I hide the freezers well, I would never want some unassuming human to find them."

He goes over to a small chest of drawers and moves it out of the way, leaving several feet of black marble tiled wall vacant, from the edge of the shower all the way to the wall, Beth guessed it to be six or seven feet,. He pulls gently on a small black handle in the marble, in the corner, and the lower half of the wall pulls out like a drawer, showing itself to contain a wide freezer chest with a glass top. He closes the black marble drawer, and turns to face Beth.

"Let's check out the other room of the suite."

He takes Beth by the arm and guides her to the second room.

It must have been set up like an office under normal circumstances, Beth guessed, but thanks to Josef's employees, it was starting to look more like the infant department of a department store had thrown up. The portable crib was set up, someone had even placed a sheet on the mattress, and placed the stuffed toys in it. The baby swing had been assembled and the batteries installed. The entertainment center had been opened, showing the flat screen TV and the DVD player, with the Baby Einstein DVDs beside the player. The clothes lay in folded piles on the desk, "washed and possibly pressed", Beth thought as she picked up a shirt for a closer look.

Beth turned to look at Josef, who smiled. "I only hire the best, apparently someone here knows more about children than I do."

"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to try and get some work done. You look tired sweetie." She leans in to his body, and Josef kisses her on the forehead, then turns and leaves the room.

Beth finds the bottles and formula set up on the desk. She picks up a bottle and the canister of formula. She finds a thermometer, and smiling, takes it out of its package. Walking back through the bedroom, she slips off her shoes, preferring to walk quietly in her socks. She assumed the Guest wing was identical to the Freshie wing, and walked down the hall, but was surprised to find no main kitchen or kitchen-like place, although there were several couches and comfortable chairs set up at the end to make a large congregation place, a lounge perhaps.

She walked back through the length of the Guest wing, crossing the main entrance and into the Freshie wing, stopping at the kitchen and filling the bottle with water then formula, mixing it, then heating it in the microwave. When the microwave beeped, Beth picked up the bottle and took the temperature of the water "Mmm.. this will do" She murmured to herself.

She screwed on the nipple to the bottle then picked up the container of formula and the thermometer. She walked over to Alisa's temporary bedroom in the freshie wing, and saw that the infant was still sleeping peacefully. She picked up the empty carrier, and walked back to her suite in the guest room, and set all the items on the floor by the desk, save the bottle, which she held. She went back to the Freshie wing and picked up the sleeping Alisa, and Alisa snuggled into her arms in her sleep. Beth went back to her suite and sat down on the surprisingly comfortable dark leather sofa which was now almost hidden behind the portable crib..

Beth hesitated for a moment. It was nearly 5am now, too early for Alisa to be waking up, but she hoped that feeding her now would let her rest or play quietly so that Beth could get some rest herself.

She lowered her head and kissed the little girl "Wake up sleepyhead" she murmured.

Realizing she had forgotten a burp cloth, she stood up and walked over to grab a cloth, then sat back down, still holding the infant. "Honey, its time for breakfast" and the little girl's eyes flutter open. She yawned and then she looked around. She sees Beth and smiles. Beth puts the nipple of the bottle into the infant's mouth, and the little girl begins drinking, looking up at Beth, and her left hand goes to twirl her wispy hair. Holding the little girl close, Beth inhaled the scent of baby, a sweet, powdery, milky, innocent, fresh smell. This little girl was so beautiful. "Yes, you are a sweet, precious little girl" Beth said, and the little girl giggled, spraying a mouthful of milk everywhere.

"Yuck!" Beth exclaimed, then proceeded to mop up as much of the milky spray as she could.

The little girl contentedly finished her bottle, and Beth changed her grip on the baby, repositioning her and she let out a loud burp. The little girl laughed at herself, and Beth picked her up and they both walked to the bathroom so she could rinse the bottle in the sink in the bathroom. Then she set the bottle on a towel to air-dry. Taking another towel, Beth went back into the second room, and, not entirely finding a more suitable surface, places the towel on the coffee table. Still holding the little girl, she goes to the diaper bag and gets one of the last diapers in the bag and the wipes and rash crème. She kneels in front of the coffee table, and sets the precious girl down on the improvised changing mat. She unsnaps the little girl's jammies and unsnaps the onesie. Her diaper was just wet, but the rash on her little bottom let Beth know that she must have been wet for much of the night.

"Oh honey, your mom wasn't joking when she said you had sensitive skin."

Beth finishes with the wipes, then gently applies rash crème to the little girl, before fastening the clean diaper on her.

Beth contemplates putting the frilly jammies back on the girl, then realizes that she'll probably be more content dressed a little warmer. She finishes taking of the frilly pajama and the undershirt and the little girl squealed and laughed as Beth tickled her tummy. Beth wrapped the little girl in a blanket and picked her up to select some warmer and comfortable clothes. She picked a long-sleeve onesie, and a warm terrycloth play/pajama that had snaps from ankles to chin. The terrycloth was white with yellow ducks. Alisa babbled and giggled while Beth put the fresh clothes on her. She tossed the frilly pajama in the corner, not having a hamper to put it in.

Beth was starting to get tired and soon the sun would come out, but she was enjoying her time with the little girl. She picked up the girl and lay the infant on her own chest after she settled down, reclining on the couch. The little girl picked up her head and looked in Beth's eyes. Beth leaned down and kissed the little girl, who laughed again, and started babbling in a sing-song fashion.

Beth picked up the little girl and set her in the portable crib, she walked over to the discarded carseat and found the beloved pink giraffe and added it to the stuffed animals in the crib. The little girl squealed and reached out for it, immediately putting it to her mouth. Beth turned around and started fiddling with the television and DVD player, and soon there was the lively dragon and caterpillar, set to repeat play. She went back to the sweet girl, and kissed her forehead.

"I need some rest sweetheart, lets hope that you can entertain yourself or go back to sleep for a few hours."

Beth found the baby monitor, and found that someone had not only plugged it in for her, this someone had also installed the batteries. She took the handset with her and went towards the bedroom. She didn't bother closing the door of the second room of the suite. She undressed, setting her clothes on a shelf in the bedroom. She turned out the soft light in the bedroom, and picked up the baby monitor handset and brought it with her to the subzero, after she pulled the handle to pull it out. She slid the glass lid open, finding the blast of cold refreshing. She picked up the baby monitor, and idlely wondered if the little gizmo could survive below zero temperatures, then realized that either way, she was about to find out. She turned on the monitor on softly, hearing the sounds of Alisa laughing and babbling. She climbed in the subzero, set the monitor beside her, then closed the glass door above her.

"Mm.. perfect" Beth thought to herself, and shortly thereafter she was deeply asleep.


	10. Chapter 10

_Author's Note: Ah, the fun continues :) Moonlight, CBS and all the other fun cool stuff isn't my creation, nor do I get any of the lucrative profits. I just play in their sandbox._

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has been reading my work. Please feel free to let me know what you like, and what you don't like,

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Chapter 10. A morning in the sunshine

The sharp cries of the infant made Beth sit up quickly in surprise. She struck her head on the lid of the freezer, and momentarily saw stars. Vampires definitely feel pain, and she smiles a rueful grin. She glanced at her watch and saw that two and a half hours had passed since she climbed into the freezer. She climbed out of the freezer, turning off the baby monitor and grabbing a bathrobe out of the closet. As she fastens the bathrobe around her, she walks into the second room.

"Baby girl, what's wrong?" she asks to the red faced little girl.

Beth catches a whiff of soiled diaper.

"Oh honey, no wonder why you're crying."

Beth picks up the baby girl and opens up the new package of diapers. The little girl's cries soften to whimpers. The wipes and rash crème are still on the coffee table, along with the makeshift changing pad. Beth takes a diaper and sets it down on the coffee table before placing the baby on the partially unfolded bath towel.

"I'm sorry honey, my hands are really cold." Beth rubs them together for a minute, trying to take off the chill of the subzero.

The infant began screaming upon being placed on the towel, and seems to take no notice of Beth's cold fingers. Beth quickly unsnaps the baby's terrycloth pyjama-like clothes, and and swiftly takes off the diaper, cleans the baby and applies rash cream, before fastening on a new diaper. The baby stops crying and looks up at Beth with her big blue eyes. Beth places the soiled diaper into a plastic bag, then snaps together the snaps on Alisa's warm outfit. The little girl is still staring at Beth with her big blue eyes, and Beth leans over and tickles the little girl on her side. The baby smiles, then laughs heartily at Beth, who tickles the infant again, then picks her up.

"Hmm, baby dear, we seem to have a small problem, to the tune of one stinky little diaper, and one household full of sensitive noses." Beth laughed softly at the wrinkled nose face that the baby made. Maybe she understood stinky diapers.

Beth, still in her bathrobe, slips on her shoes and sunglasses, and while still carrying the little one and the offending plastic entombed diaper, goes to the front door. Just outside the front door, was the location she placed a soiled diaper yesterday out of mild desperation. This morning however, there was a note.

" Incinerator on the path north to the house. Otherwise, you put bad baby trash in the bathroom in the fresh lounge. Regards, Karl"

If Beth were human, she would have blushed at Karl having to deal with one poopy diaper, She smiled at Karl's note. She never considered that he was literate in English, and judging his penmanship, it could have been awhile since he's written last.

Beth looks over at the baby girl in her arms, who is now laughing and trying to grab a ray of sunshine.

"Honey, it looks like you could use a little sunshine yourself".

It was a beautiful sunny day, but first Beth had to prepare for the onslaught of sun to her still-sensitive self. She sets down the soiled bag temporarily, and retreated, with baby to the house. She went to the front coat closet and found one of Sara's long jackets, grateful that the two women were about the same size. She also found a wide brimmed hat. Beth went to her room and tossed the hat and coat on her bed. Still holding the infant, she walks into the semiformal living room and opens the hidden refrigerator, taking out an IV bag of prepackaged blood. She shifts the baby to her hip.

Beth smiled, all vampires need blood, cold, and rest. However, in the short term more blood can compensate for less time in the subzero and less rest. She supposes that the inverse could be true, more time in the subzero could compensate for less blood, but that's not a theory she has any interest in testing out.

She pours the contents of the bag into a thickly frosted glass. Right now, she's just aiming for speed, and prepackaged blood is just a fast way to meet her needs. She swallows the dark liquid, and glances down and sees that the infant is watching her intently, not concerned in the least that Beth's canine teeth have distended and she's sure her eyes have turned silver. Beth is relieved that the little girl didn't have some adverse reaction to seeing Beth's face transforming, so that she could eat. Beth finishes the contents of her glass, then walks over to the bar's sink and rinses out her glass, feeling her canine teeth recede back to normal.

She walks back to her guest room, and gently sets the baby on the bed, reclined in almost a sitting position with the help of a few pillows, with a couple more pillows to bolster her if she decides to roll. She walks to the crib and finds the beloved pink giraffe and hands it to the little girl, who squeals with delight. Beth opts to nix the shower, and pulls on her pants and sweater, puts on her shoes, finds a blanket and the stuffed blocks and places them with the jacket on the bed. Her gym bag made its way to her room sometime, and Beth tosses the remaining contents of the bag into the closet, before placing the blanket and the toys inside it. Beth then puts the long jacket on herself, the hat with the wide brim, and her sunglasses.

"Are you ready to go dispose of that dirty diaper properly, little one?" she asks.

The baby girl just laughs, chewing on that giraffe's left back foot. Adeptly, Beth picks up the baby and giraffe with one arm, picks up the gym bag with her other arm and slings it up to her shoulder. Beth walks back outside, and picks up the offensive diaper, and they go walking toward the north side of the house. When they got out of the shadow of the house, everything became bright, sunny and warm again. Finally, fifty feet ahead of her, Beth could see a large metal container. She walked up to it, and assumed from the bits of ash scattered about that this must be the incinerator. The directions, if there were any, weren't posted conspicuously. Beth started looking for some chute or door for the incinerator, and found a rather large sliding door on the side of the incinerator. She opened it up and slid the soiled diaper and bag inside, then closed the door. She got the chills, realizing that the incinerator was the perfect size for a body, and was possibly a way for Josef to get rid of his "problems", she could only hope these problems were already fully dead before being turned into an ash barbecue celebration. Beth moved to the east side of the house, that side of the house had more sun, which she didn't want personally, but it did have some luscious green lawn with some great shade trees, which was exactly what she was looking for. Still carrying the baby, she walked to the grass, and where the shade of the tree was dappled with the sun, she set down her gym bag and pulled out the baby blanket, smoothing it on the grass. Thank goodness it was late spring in LA, it was already warm enough for most people to don shorts and bikinis. Then she gently set the baby down on the blanket, removing her snap up white ducky jammies, and leaving her in just a long sleeve onesie. She handed the little girl a soft block, which she regarded studiously, then lunged to her side when she saw her giraffe again, and held it close to her as she smiled and babbled. Beth moved several feet away, to the complete shade of the oak tree. She watched the little girl, kicking her feet, waving her arms, and babbling a song.

Listening to the little girl cooing reminded her of a piece of advice that her own mother gave her about Erica and Elliot. Both babies had encountered a case or pretty severe diaper rash, and Beth and her own mother were watching the twins, and after changing the babies, her mother had announced that little baby bums needed fresh air to help them heal. It seemed to work nice for Elliot and Erica. Maybe the same would work for little Alisa, worst case scenario, she'd have a baby with a diaper rash and a soggy blanket to deal with.

Beth went back over to the little girl, and eased her out of her onesie, then took off her diaper. The diaper was still clean, and had rubbed off most of the rash crème that Beth had put on the little girl. She set the little girl back down, naked as the day she was born, onto the blanket. The little girl was laughing and kept kicking her legs. Beth set the onesie and the clean diaper in her gym bag, then retreated back to the shade. The baby girl was squealing with delight, and now chewing on the head of her much loved giraffe. She looked so cherubic there against the pale pink blanket, she looked over at Beth and grinned, before going back to her game of singing and attempting to eat the giraffe.

The warm morning breeze was gentle this late spring morning, and Beth realized that for the first time since her vacation prior to the LA fires five years ago, she was enjoying the simple pleasure of the morning. She may never be able to enjoy the sunshine or get a tan, but she definitely was enjoying this morning.

She looked back over at the gorgeous naked infant, clearly enjoying herself in the morning sunshine.

Twenty minutes later, she realized that even though she was in the shade, the effect of the sun was bothering her enough that she needed to retreat indoors. She went back to the baby girl and started singing a silly song while she dressed the girl. It was too soon to tell, but she hoped the fresh air helped the infant's rash.

She picked up the baby girl, who was clutching her giraffe again, and with one hand folded the blanket and placed it in her gym bag with the soft cubes. Looking over at the grinning infant in her arms, she smiled back and said softly "This was fun, wasn't it? We'll have to do it again sometime."

She walked back into the house, and upon returning to her guest suite, she gently set the baby in the middle of the bed, then she took off the jacket hat and sunglasses. She walked towards the second room and set down her gym bag.

"Well, baby girl, since we've managed to mess up the schedule enough, lets try feeding you, and see if you'll take a nap. If I'm lucky and you're quiet, and you're lucky and I get some freezer time, maybe we'll give you a bath and go visiting your mommy today."

The baby giggled, the closest thing to a response that Beth was going to get. Beth picked up a clean bottle from the table, and on second thought, picked up the handful of used ones and the container of formula, and after picking up Alisa, she trooped over to the freshie wing. It was now midmorning, and a group of humans were up, unbelievably gorgeous women (Josef's food), and dashing athletic men (Sara's food). It looked like the humans were having orange juice and bagels and cream cheese for breakfast, and while Beth didn't give them much attention apart from the polite "hello" and "good morning" routine, Alisa was most certainly having a ball. The baby girl would smile and coo at anyone who looked her way.

Finally one of the girls, Jacqueline, Beth thought, asked if the little girl was her daughter, implying the infant to be a vampire. Beth tried to hide her own smile. These women, while obviously fitting Josef's taste and décor, seemed to be missing some fluff upstairs. She contemplating saying "Yes, this is my daughter with Josef, I decided to let her pick her meal today; honey, which one of these girls would you like to bite for breakfast?" and realized that some of the women may actually take her seriously.

While Beth was contemplating a serious answer, the little girl threw her arms out to one of the shirtless broad shouldered tanned young men, shortly followed by the little girl trying to launch herself in midair. The man reached out to the girl, and asked "May I hold her?"

Beth nodded and handed her over to the freshie. "Daniel, right?" she asked, trying to remember his name.

He smiled, showing his perfect smile, impressed that Beth knew his name. Beth turned towards Jacqueline. "Little Alisa here is completely human, I'm watching her for a friend. At the moment, we're making use of instruments designed for the human influence, such as dishwashers, microwaves. And, it appears this wing has a relative monopoly on all human-acquired appliances, I hope our intrusion doesn't bother you."

Beth explains herself while she tosses the dirty bottles in the dishwasher, and prepares a new one for the infant. She pops it into the microwave, sets the adjustments and presses the start button.

Daniel was still holding Alisa, and by the looks of it, he was quite at ease. "You must have a lot of younger brothers and sisters." Beth said, smiling.

"Not quite", he replied, while playing a game of peek-a-boo with the favored giraffe "My nephew is a few months older than this baby girl, and my niece is three. My job here, my brother would kill me if he knew, its helping pay his way through med school."

The microwave dinged, and Beth silently cursed herself for forgetting the thermometer. "Daniel," Beth smiled sweetly, "I need to ask a favor." Beth pulls out the bottle, screws on the nipple, and shakes it gently. Daniel may be the only one here familliar with testing bottle temperature.

"Sure, no problem." he responded, clearly pleased, and he set the little girl in the lap of Jacqueline, and Beth tried not to cringe. Jacqueline wouldn't drop the kid, she reasoned, but she still found herself saying "Jacqueline, please keep a hand on her, she doesn't know how to sit."

The little girl smiled and batted her long eyelashes at Jacqueline, who soon found herself sitting on the floor, playing a game with the stuffed giraffe, while holding the girl close to her.

Daniel walked up to Beth and stretched out his neck, closing his eyes, showing his plump jugular vein and his pulsating carotid artery, singing with blood. "Whoa, this is a misunderstanding." thought Beth.

She patted Daniel's shoulder in a comforting way. "I'm sorry Daniel, that wasn't quite the favor I needed. You see, I can't tell the baby's bottle temperature. Do you mind putting a few drops on your wrist and letting me know if it's a decent temperature?"

Daniel laughed. At least he had a good sense of humor. "Aww, I thought you needed a midnight or midday snack or something." The rest of the group laughs friendly at Daniel's eagerness to feed Beth.

Daniel expertly turns the bottle over and after a few drops hit his wrist, he smiles and says, "That's just right for the little girl."

"Thank you so much" Beth says, as she collects the container of formula, then collects the giggling Alisa from Jacqueline. "I really appreciate your help, both you Daniel, and Jacqueline."

Jacqueline giggles, and Daniel blushes. Beth heads back toward the guest wing, and once Daniel thinks she's out of earshot, he says to the group "She wanted me, her eyes almost turned silver… if that baby weren't in the way, she would have had me right there in the kitchen."

Beth laughed. The dynamic of the freshie group had changed now that it was co-ed, but their antics have only gotten more amusing, instead of the catty bunch who pretended to wear haloes every time Josef walked by. She kind of preferred it, except for the fact that the males were too excited to offer themselves to Beth any opportunity they had.

Beth walked back to her guest suite, picking up a burp cloth on her way over to the sofa. She curled up, settled Alisa into her lap, and popped the bottle into the little girl's mouth. The little girl starts sucking down her milk, and just as they both get settled, her mobile phone starts ringing.

Mumbling a curse word under her breath she answers it.

"Hello?"

"Hey Beth, I figured you'd be asleep and I'd leave you a message."

Mick is on the line, and Beth can't quite read his tone of voice.

"I've got news about Tom Cudelli" he continued.

"Good news, I hope." Beth said, looking forward to helping reunite Alisa to her family.

"Well, not so good news. His secretary said he's doing research out on the Galapagos Islands, and isn't due back for two more weeks. I called his travel agency to put word out to his chartered ship that there was a family emergency and to call me. But even if he starts coming back this minute, it'll take several days, he is in a pretty remote area."

"So I have this baby for who knows exactly when?"

"Did I mention I have good news? I got his home address, a company was listed on the deed which was why Ryder couldn't pull it up, and I'm headed there in a few to find out what kind of information I can pull on our daddy-to-be, and if I don't have any leads to follow from there, I'll be back in LA later today."

Alisa spit out her bottle and started to fuss, and instinctively Beth held her to her shoulder and patted her back lightly to burp her.

"What are you doing awake, Beth?"

"One word Mick. Baby."

"Oh geez. Is the kiddo keeping you awake?"

"Yes, no, and we're about to change her diaper and see if we can both catch a nap"

"I won't keep you then."

"Good luck with the house search" Beth said, then hung up the phone.

The little girl's eyes were already starting to close. It definitely wasn't close to the mother's note of naptime, but maybe the sunshine was a good thing for the baby.

Gently, Beth changed the little girl's diaper, and redressed the infant. She placed the little girl in her crib, found the giraffe and placed it nearby the little girl, then covered her with two blankets. In her sleep, the little girl sighed, then started softly snoring. Beth could hear her heartbeat start to slow as the little girl eased into a deeper sleep.

Beth quickly went to the bedroom, undressed, turned on the baby monitor, and climbed into the freezer. She was going to take advantage of every moment of cold she could get, as it now seemed like her temporary parenting duties weren't about to ease up.

Quickly, she fell asleep.


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's Note: I was thinking that this weekend I'd go scuba diving or buy rights of Moonlight. Alas, I've done neither. Moonlight is their toy, and their crap still belongs to them :)_

_A huge round of applause is due to all of you who have gotten through my story thusfar. I appreciate your reading, and I appreciate your feedback._

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_ErisFury gets another shout out for having a fantastic story "The Fledgling", which this story uses as a backdrop, with permission. If you haven't checked out "The Fledgling", go. Go go go! My chapter can wait :)_

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11. Bath time

She's not sure what woke her up a few hours later. She listened to the quiet hum of the monitor, and she's able to pick up the baby's breathing. The little girl was still sleeping. Beth stretched out, enjoying the feeling of the brisk chill on her own body, and ran her fingers through her hair. She glanced at her watch, a beautiful delicate watch of gold that had been a gift from Josef on her "first birthday" as he had phrased it. She rarely took it off, and was impressed at how rugged the delicate watch was. She wasn't sure how, or if, she should celebrate birthdays. Her own birthday was in the winter, just before Christmas. She was turned in late summer, and Josef always found an excuse to mark the occasion. She knows Mick's own birthday was in November, but she didn't know when time of the year he was turned. It was not an occasion he mentioned. Josef never mentioned his actual birthdate, nor does the date in which he was turned have any importance apparently. She wondered who turned him and why.

Beth finds herself heaving a quiet sigh, as she decides that she ought to take a shower before the baby awakens. She slides the door open on the subzero, and climbs into the bathroom. She walks over to the large walk in shower, and smiles to see that its already stocked with a good quality shampoo and body wash, she turns on the tap, then walks over to grab a towel from the cabinet. She sets it down and steps under the spray, momentarily lost in its splendor. Her bliss is quickly stopped in its tracks when she hears the baby in the other room starting to wake up. With decided haste, she washes her hair and body, then rinsing while she conditions her hair. Finally rinsing again, she turns off the tap, and steps out of the shower, picking up her towel, and efficiently drying herself off.

The infant is in the other room, babbling to herself. "Her mom really wasn't joking when she said that Alisa was a happy baby." Beth muses.

Beth puts on her clothes, and walks into the other room, and the little infant offers Beth another grin, then starts babbling some more. "Good morning, precious," she says to the tiny girl.

The girl grabs at her feet, gleefully putting the toes of her jammies into her mouth. Beth grabs a bottle and formula and remembers a thermometer, setting them on the coffee table. Beth picks up the little girl and waggles the baby over Beth's head. The little girl squeals with delight. Beth sets her in the baby swing, straps her in, and turns on a baby DVD. She kisses the downy hair of the little girl, and tells her she'll be right back. The infant returns to babbling, cooing a happy song.

Beth picks up the baby bottle making paraphernalia. She walks softly to the Freshie kitchen, and fills a bottle with water and formula, then mixes it. She sets it in the microwave, and looks around. The freshies are out, she can hear a couple of the gals and guys in the pool. Beth looks around the kitchen and is touched to find that someone has not only turned on the dishwasher to clean the bottles, but has set the clean bottles on a paper towel with a little note, "Beth, just thought I'd help."

Beth smiles, knowing who would have done that; she can faintly smell him on the bottles from touching them as he unloaded.

She makes up a bottle, and then shifts it to the back pocket of her jeans so that she can pick up all the clean bottles and the can of formula, to bring them back to the room. As she returns, she walks over to the desk and sets down the now-clean bottles, then pulls the freshly made bottle out of her back pocket. The little girl had been watching her, and she squeals with delight upon seeing a full bottle. Beth smiles and walks over to the little girl.

"You just ate a few hours ago, honey, we are completely messing up the schedule, but I'd rather keep you fed and happy."

She picks up the little girl, and takes her over to the couch, settling herself in for the now-routine feeding time. The little girl latches on to her bottle and sucks down a few ounces, before pulling away and starting to dribble milk allover herself. Beth made a face, picked up the burp cloth that was nearby, and wiped down the little girl. Beth put the bottle back in the infant's mouth, and after a few seconds of drinking, the little girl pulls away, repeating the milky stream down her face and clothing.

"Yuck, Alisa. I'll take a hint. This means you're not hungry."

Beth looks down at the little girl, who looks back up at her with those big baby blue eyes. The infant grins another heartwarming smile at Beth and laughs, and Beth grins despite herself as she mops up the girl a second time.

"Well, honey, I suppose its time for bath time for you."

Still holding the milky laughing girl, Beth walks to the desk and finds the baby wash and shampoo. She walks to the bathroom and takes out several fluffly towels. She lays out a towel and sets the baby on it. Beth looks around, realizing the tub is much too large, and the sink just isn't the right size. She contemplates taking the infant into the shower, but rejects the thought because a comfortable temperature for the baby would feel just too warm for Beth. She silently curses herself for not getting a baby bathtub. She thinks to the sinks in the house that would better suite a makeshift baby bathtub, and realizes that there are only two sinks, the sink at the bar in the informal living room, and the sink in the freshie wing.. The bar would have to do for now. She tosses a few bathtowels over her shoulder and a washcloth too, the baby wash and lotion, thermometer too, then wanders to the second room and finds a clean diaper.

She realizes that what she really needs is some rag clothes, bathing a kid gets messy, and wet. The baby is still on the towel in the bathroom, giggling and babbling to herself. She debates for a moment, Sara doesn't mind if Beth borrows clothes, and the two gals have swapped things for a long time. She walks up the stairs to the master bedroom, and hopes she doesn't wake the sleeping couple. She finds an old white shirt, a pair of dark yoga pants..  
"Just about perfect." Beth said to herself as she walked softly back down stairs.

She walks to her suite, and quickly sheds her clothing in favor of a Sara's playclothes. She picks up the little girl, who beams at her, and she walks to the bar. Holding the little girl on her hip, she is grateful that the sink is clean, and she plugs the sink, starts the tap, adds some baby wash for some bubbles, and as the sink is filling, she adjusts the taps to make a proper temperature for a baby. She lays out the towels on the counter, and places the infant on them. As she gently removes the baby girl's clothes, she turns off the tap when the sink is full, and gently sets the naked baby in the perfect size sink for her. She shrieks with joy, and splashes bubbles everywhere. Beth, while keeping one hand on the infant, gets the washcloth wet, then adds some baby wash, making suds. She realizes she doesn't have an appropriate way to pour water on this little girl's head, and reaches above her for what's available, a crystal decanter. "Oh well," she thinks, "when in Rome…"

She uses the container to pour water over the little girl's head. Aside from blinking a couple times, the infant doesn't seem to mind. In fact, the little girl is still laughing and splashing bubbles over everything, especially Beth. Beth works some suds into the little girl's fine hair, then rinses it. She goes back to the abandoned washcloth, and uses it to soap the baby's body. Glad to see that bit of diaper rash is starting to subside, as she washes the little girl. The cleaning part done, she plays with the little girl, who still loves to splash all the water and bubbles she can find.. Beth pulls the drain, and quickly turns on the tap and finds an appropriate temperature for the little girl, and using the same crystal container, she helps rinse the girl down once more. The infant decides that this is nowhere near fun, and starts to make unhappy noises."

"Tough luck, honey." Beth replied. "Every girl has got to get clean sometime; I know there's nothing wrong with the water."  
Beth finishes rinsing the little girl, then sets her on a white fluffy towel, then dries off the little girl. She puts on the little girl's diaper, and bundles her up in towels, realizing that the only place in the house with the right temperature for an infant is in the freshie wing. She grabs the baby lotion, and picks up the towel covered infant, and walks to the lounge at the end of the freshie wing. There is sunlight streaming in a window, and Beth moves a char so that the sunlight hits just her lap, then sits down, unwrapping the little girl from the towels. The freshie wing is vacant, sans the part where there's laughter and splashing out by the pool.

The little girl squints in the sunlight, then starts kicking her feet and waving her arms in joy. Beth takes a small handful of lotion, and attempts to take the chill off it by rubbing it in her hands, then proceeds to smooth lotion on this little girl. The little girl squeaks and giggles, completely enjoying herself. Beth sits in the sunshine by the window for a few more minutes, its uncomfortable for her, but at least her face and arms aren't in direct light, and the sunshine can't penetrate her pants. "Babies need sunshine," she tells herself "even if their vampire babysitters don't like it".

A few minutes later, Beth decides that the little girl has had enough sun for now, and should be sufficiently warm after her bath. Beth picks up the little girl, the towels and lotion and walks back to her suite.

Arriving back at the suite, she sets the infant on a blanket on the floor in the second room, where the baby DVD is still playing, and covers the mostly bare child with a warm blanket. Beth walks over to the desk that's now doubling for a baby-care section. She picks one of the outfits that Sara picked the other day, a pink dress with a white shirt underneath. She locates the baby tights and finds the shoes. She makes a mental note that the only short sleeve onesie is in the diaper bag and curses softly to herself, she should have thought to buy warm-weather clothes such as short sleeves and socks. Oh well, not much she can do about it now, and the car, Josef's home, and the hospital will all be relatively cool.

She pulls out the onesie, and holding the dress, tights and shoes, goes over to the baby girl. She sits down on the floor with the little girl, sets her in her lap, and proceeds to get the infant into the onesie, then the long sleeve white button up shirt, then manages to get the little girl's wiggly legs into the tights ("yes, we definitely need to get socks" Beth thinks ruefully.), then while having the feet to her attention, she straps on the little shoes. They're a perfect fit. Beth wrangles the pink sleeveless dress over the little girl, then puts her in her car-seat, setting the car-seat on the floor so the girl can watch the TV. She absently locates the pink giraffe, and hands it to the infant. Beth takes inventory of herself, noting the sopping wet shirt and pants that have been splashed a few times. She needs to swing by her place, well, the home of herself and Mick, and pack herself some clothes, whether she's staying here at Josef's or if she goes to the cottage.

She hears someone walking down the hall, and she walks to the bedroom door to find out who it is. The door is closed, but before anyone knocks, she catches Josef's scent. The footsteps stop at her door. "Just a minute, Josef, I need to change clothes." Beth says.

He opens the door, offers her a smile with a wink as he saunters in, and reclines lazily on the bed. "You do know" Beth starts in a mildly scolding manner, "that it's rude to walk in on people without knocking or waiting for an invitation."

He smirks, and imitating Beth's tone of voice, says "You do know, that vampires don't always follow the rules. Besides, its my house, I follow my rules."

"And what exactly would those rules be?" Beth asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Anyone having a wet tee-shirt contest with themseves is worth a view." he says smoothly and smiles.

He looks over to Beth, who is uncomfortably aware that he's assessing her wet and nearly translucent shirt. He gets a gleam in his eyes when Beth finally squirms under his scrutiny.

"I just came to let you know that I intended to go see Annelise with you. Mick left me a message saying that you're going out today to see her."

Josef idly crosses his feet, and finally releases his gaze from Beth's shirt and everything it failed to conceal.

Beth takes a breath and regains her composure. "Yes, that is the plan, as long as I get a moment to change without prying eyes visually undressing me at their every opportunity."

"Honey, there is no part of you that I haven't seen, felt, or caressed. Never forget who created you."

Josef laughs as Beth's attempt to keep a stormy reaction dissolves slowly, despite her best efforts, to a laugh. "Yes perhaps, but if you start into the story of my creation again, you'll wind up being staked by your best friend."

Beth reaches to the floor and fetches her clothes, and walks purposefully into the bathroom, closing and locking the door. She changes into her sweater and jeans, quickly brushes her fingers through her hair,, and as she comes out of the bathroom, Josef is nowhere to be seen in the bedroom. She catches his scent in the second room, and there, to her complete shock, is Josef holding the human infant in his lap. The little girl is looking up at him, as he sings an off-key foreign lullaby song.

Beth finds herself wondering about his past, if anyone ever sang that song to him, or where he picked it up from.

She stands in the doorway, not wanting to interrupt.

Josef finishes his little song, and kisses the little girl on the head. She giggles. Josef scoops her up and puts her back in her car seat, but fumbles at the straps. Beth walks over and squats down to give him a hand. Josef relents, grateful because he isn't altogether sure how the contraption works.

"In five minutes, we shall leave," Josef states. "I'll have a car brought around front."

Beth smiles to herself. That man had more cars than she could keep track of, plus he was always buying something new every few months. She supposes boys will have their toys, even if they're 400 year old multimillionaires.


	12. Chapter 12

_Author's Note: We all know the drill: whatever's mine is mine, whatever belongs to CBS is theirs, and ErisFury is an inspirational author. _

_This chapter was kind of orphaned and I tried to resurrect it from the dead. I needed to get some things explained somehow, and for those who enjoy Josef and Beth - this chapter is for you. _

Once again, my extremely deep appreciation to everyone who has taken the time to read my story, and for those especially who have taken the effort to give me feedback. 

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Chapter 12, the drive. 

Beth spends the next several minutes filling up the diaper bag with fresh wipes, diapers, the formula, a few bottles, and a change of clothes. She quickly dons a baseball hat, and puts on her sunglasses and the same overcoat she borrowed earlier that day. She picks up the little girl in her car seat, and picks up the diaper bag with the other hand. She walks out her door, down the short hall, and to the main entrance of the house. As promised, there was a car by the door, and a young looking gentleman held the door open for Beth. He was caught by surprise, when instead of climbing in, she set the car seat in, and buckled it securely. She thanks the gentleman and goes around to the other side and sits in the spacious sedan, beside the girl, who is happily playing with her stuffed giraffe.

Josef is escorted into the car a few minutes later, and takes a seat beside her. "I'm sorry I'm running late, the phone rang."

Beth's investigative senses kick in, judging by the look on his face, and his scent which is calming down from whatever anger he was experiencing, whatever happened on the phone last minute, was not good.

She's just about to start asking Josef about the content of the call, when he clears his throat. He pulls her close to himself, and she rests her head on his shoulder as he wraps his arm around her. He takes off her hat and slowly starts running his fingers through her hair.

"I should, um, tell you a little bit about Annelise Alder. She was phenomenal."

Beth looks at Josef and arches an eyebrow. "This isn't the 'She's just another freshie' story, is it?"

Josef smiles, almost sadly, then kisses Beth's forehead and rests his own cheek against her soft hair, and starts to tell Beth about Annelise.

"Most of the girls, they're just a part of the food chain for us. They have what we want, and for it, they're more than satisfied with money to go purchase fancy clothes, whatever status symbol of the moment.. Annelise sang to a different tune. She was just as gorgeous as the other freshies, but I could see it in her eyes, her scent, she was a purposeful woman. While the other girls took their payments and spent it on parties and clothes and cars, Annelise was very modest with her income, very sharp with her wit though. Freshies need to be docile, you know yourself the predatory urge that strikes when we smell fear. Annelese was fearless and polite, but far from shallow. I was mesmerized by whatever about her life she was keeping from me. It set her apart, though not in a negative way, she reminded me of Sara in so many ways. I came back from the office one day in the mid afternoon, and found her lounging by the pool, reading.

"Many girls read things, girly magazines, beauty school, information on modeling, but she was one of the only girls that had a textbook that looked like it was seven hundred pages thick. And more than that, she had four of them out, and she was so deep in taking notes and turning pages about embryonics of ocean life and costal water climate change, that I stood there for several minutes, just watching, and feeling this great joy and rapture she was experiencing in her life. There was so much more depth to her than any of the other girls. She finally looked up and found me in the shadow of the house, watching her.

"I invited her into the living room. I found myself interested in a human for longer than a few seconds, and we talked for a few hours. She spoke of an organism found within the ocean that could help detoxify trace metals from humans. When I asked how it worked, she took the time to explain how the organism, like plankton, even when dead and freeze dried could be ground up and placed in a sterile dish with blood, and several hours later the blood would have significantly less trace metals in it, lead, mercury, cadmium, and silver too."

Beth was a little confused why Josef would care about a woman interested in the ocean, and she moved her head to look up at him.

"It could have an application for vampires to help clear silver out of our systems," he said, and Beth understood why her research had importance to him.

"When I asked how she dealt with the blood loss and still managed to keep up with her studies, she shared with me that she'd usually go to the hospital the next day wearing a scarf, and complaining of severe bleeding from her menstrual cycle or a nosebleed. Once she had a transfusion of blood, she would feel fine. After hearing this, I realized I couldn't keep her as a freshie. She needed her own blood, and I just couldn't take hers anymore. I decided a clean break off was the best, and I told her that I no longer needed her services, but I was fascinated by her research and hoped she'd continue. She left, and I went to UCLA to learn as much as I could about her state of tuition. Turns out, she was spending much on her tuition. I paid off the rest of her tuition and set up a fund for her to draw off of as needed."

Josef sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Funny now, but I decided to name it the Sara Fitzgerald Foundation - paying for her schooling, her room and board, textbooks, you name it. She was very studious and got her undergraduate degree without any problems. When she was accepted to University of Southern Califonia to pursue her interests in the ocean and the climate, she did exceedingly well. I had my ties with that school, able to provide for her monetarily. I had my sources keep me updated on her progress, but once she graduated, I lost track of her. She must have guessed that I had something to do behind her unique scholarship situations, because at the start of every semester I received a simple thank you card. I never saw her again after the day I fired her, but I thought of her occasionally. I've read all of her research articles, didn't understand them much, nor is oceanic ecology and weather fluctuations really my subject of interest. The technology for harvesting this sea organism seems to be ahead of its time, it just seems to need more time. She's continued working on her research. She really made quite a name for herself and her studies were all highly received by her peers.

"Annelise was a special woman. The looks and the taste for a perfect freshie, and one of the only girls I've ever sent away for their own good, so they could go out and change the world for the better. Seems that Annelise lived up to her calling. I suppose I want one chance to tell her that she surpassed even my expectations of her, and find out if there's anything I can do for her while she's still alive, or any fears she has that I can help alleviate after she's gone."

Beth was nearly moved to tears. The harsh business exterior of him that intimidated so many people, showed that he truly had deep feelings even for humans, some select humans apparently, something Beth had somewhat doubted from time to time.

The infant was oddly quiet, seeming to absorb as much about her mother as she possibly could.

Beth wrapped her arm around Josef, and gave him a squeeze. She understood how difficult it was for Josef to talk about anything that mattered to him, and she was a little surprised that he'd felt a connection with this woman. She was finally starting to understand why this woman felt so trusting of Josef, and thus of Mick, to leave her child with him. She hadn't heard so much anguish in his voice in years.

He put his hand up to her cheek, and started gently tracing the outline of her face, lost in thought.


	13. Chapter 13

_Author's Note: _

Thank you for continuing to put up with me while I put my first story together. I truly appreciate the feedback and reviews. My little story is becoming fuller and richer with thanks to the people who have shared their thoughts and opinions.

Moonlight isn't mine. This should be a suprise to no one :)

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13: Meeting Annelise 

A few minutes later, the sedan pulled up in front of UCLA's medical center, and the driver opened the door. Josef looked Beth over. "Lose the overcoat, Beth."

Beth obliges, keeping the hat and sunglasses.

Beth finally went around to the other side of the car to pick up the baby and to get the diaper bag.

Looking at Beth holding the infant, Josef's upper lip twitched. "Now we make quite a trio."

For the first time, Beth thought to look at what he was wearing. He wore a sharp navy suit, with brown leather shoes, a white shirt and a softly striped light blue tie. As always, the man exuded confidence in his dressing. Beth looked down at herself, wearing her sweater and worn-in jeans, then over at the baby who looks so angelic, sitting in her arms contentedly.

Josef held the door open for Beth and the infant, then walked straight to the reception area "I'm here to see Annelise Alder," he said simply.

"Are you family?" the woman asked.

"We're her nearest relatives. We're watching her child." Josef sounded brisk and businesslike.

"Annelise Alder is in room 1415. I'm sorry but all visitors must be over the age of 12."

Even with his back to her, Beth could tell that "No Alisa" was not an acceptable choice. She could pick up that his scent changed to irritation.

"We'll talk with the nurse, thank you for Annelise's room."

"Rules are rules," the reception lady spoke after them.

Beth walked over to the elevators and pressed the up button. Quickly, an elevator was available and Josef and Beth walked into it. As they slowly made their way up the elevator shaft, Josef spoke in low tones to Beth.

"You'll go in first with the infant. Annelise needs to talk with you, see her own child, put her mind at ease. I'll run interference if we have any problems."

As the elevator doors opened, Beth saw the sign pointing out rooms 1400 to 1420 on their left. The walked down the hall and walked to the door of room 1415. The door was open partially, and Beth knocked on the door lightly.

"Come in" said a tired-sounding voice.

Beth walked in, still holding the infant. Beth saw Annelise for the first time, and realized why she was wearing such baggy clothes when she dropped off Alisa at Mick's doorstep. She was bald and swollen from the chemotherapy or radiation, or whatever they do to treat cancer. Yet even with the swelling, she was as thin as a rail. Beth had no training in the medical field, but she'd never seen a woman this thin in her entire life or undead life.

"This can't be Alisa." The woman rubbed her eyes, as though she'd been asleep. "Alisa my love," she smiled weakly to her little girl.

The little girl could definitely tell who her own mommy was, and squealed with delight, trying to take a nosedive out of Beth's arms.

"Are you Annelise?" Beth asked. She already knew the answer to her own question, her scent almost identical to when she had left Alisa for Mick: wounded, sick, mildly acid-like, and other scents beth couldn't identify.

"I'm Annelise only if you're my health insurance, a man I know named Josef, or my driver's license. The rest of the world just calls me Anne."

Beth smiled at the woman, she definitely had a sense of humor. "Would you like to hold Alisa?" Beth asked, looking at the squirmy infant, to the frail looking woman.

"Please, pull up a chair and hold Alisa close to me. Then, please tell me who you are and why you have my daughter and what happened to Mick, the person responsible for my daughter. I thought his job was to find Tom, not arrange daycare services."

Beth smiled again, choosing to ignore the comment about Mick and his job. "I'm Mick St. John's wife, Beth. Bethany actually, but only my grandfather called me that. Josef's never tried the 'insist on the full name' trick with me, but I'm not sure he'd survive the encounter."

Beth looked at the woman, who was laughing softly at Josef's quirk about insisting on calling someone by their full birth name.

"Mick is in San Francisco," she continued.

Beth looked down at the little girl, who had stopped squirming, and was now insistent on trying to eat the button on Beth's sweater. Beth moved a chair so it was beside the bed, close enough for Annelise to reach out and hold her own child. Beth reached into the diaper bag and pulled out the giraffe, handing it to the little girl who happily abandoned her button-chewing attempts.

"He's finding Tom Cudelli, and I'm helping out with the little one. I thought you'd like to see your little girl and know that she's in the best of hands. She's a really precious little girl."

At that, Annelise began weeping quietly. Beth handed her a tissue, and wrapped her arm comfortingly around the woman. Beth wondered idly to herself that this woman was possibly more emotional than a newborn vampire, but given the circumstances, she sympathized with the woman.

Annelise dabbed the tissue to her eyes, then blew her nose. "Tom and I were research partners from time to time. We met when I was at USC working on my master's degree and we stayed in touch. I never imagined I'd get pregnant at 38, I was so devoted to my career. I was five months pregnant with Alisa when they found that I had cancer, a rapidly aggressive form, it had metastasized already, to almost every organ in my body.. The doctors gave me two choices, I could abort the baby and they would treat me aggressively and I would have a marginal chance of survival, or I could carry the baby to term then begin to treat me aggressively and I'd have a less than marginal chance of survival. I realized then and there that I wanted to carry this baby, get to know this precious little life that had been within me. She's an amazing little girl. I hadn't been too crazy with the thought of raising a baby until I realized I wouldn't have the chance. I lived every day for her. I tried treatments for the cancer after Alisa was born, but there just doesn't seem to be a 'miracle cure' out there for me. Tom's a really great guy, I never told him I was pregnant because I didn't want to change his devotion to his career, but Alisa deserves to have a family."

Slowly, Annelise calmed down, Beth could sense it. Annelise was looking at her daughter, who was carefully trying to pull off the giraffe's tail, smiling and babbling all the while. "Alisa is one of the sweetest infants I've ever known," Beth says, genuinely.

Beth looked down at the little girl, and looking at her mother realized that the two had the same sky-blue eyes. Beth moved the little girl closer to her mother, and Annelise reached out and stroked the baby on the cheek. Beth slid her arm out from around the woman, and adjusted the baby girl so her mother could see her better.

"I think that I'm glad that Mick has you for a wife. I wasn't sure where to turn when I realized Tom's company had changed ownership and I didn't know its new name, and I couldn't find him. Mick has always had a reputation for being on of the best, plus I know he's trustworthy, him being so close to Josef and all, but I definitely had my reservations leaving my baby with a…"

Annelise's eyes widened in shock, realizing what she almost said. "You know what he is, don't you? I mean, he had to have told you, you being his wife."

Annelise stammered. "He couldn't possibly have gotten married without you realizing…"

She trailed off.

Beth smiled and hushed her voice in a conspiring tone. "You mean he might be a vampire?" Beth did a mild attempt at pretending to be shocked, her eyes widening with mock surprise. Beth grinned and looked back at the woman.

Annelise laughed at Beth's theatrics.

Beth looks down at the infant, "I can understand why you'd be cautious entrusting your infant to him, but he's never considered children as a food source."

Annelise laughed. "If I remember correctly, Mick wouldn't even consider a living adult as a food source either, he seems to enjoy his meals straight from the fridge. Its been years, but he'd insist on the prepacked stuff, even when Josef would practically set one of the other women on Mick's lap."

Beth laughed at the mental picture of Josef trying to woo Mick with live blood. Josef was never very successful in that arena, much to Josef's own dismay.

Annelise looked deeply into Beth's eyes, gaining the muster to ask a question that has been unanswered for so many years. "What is it like, living with a vampire? I mean, they're so intriguing, they're almost magnetic, but they live so differently than us humans. How do you pull it off? Do you have children?"

Looking into Annelise's eyes, Beth realized that the woman had no idea that Mick wasn't the solo vampire in his home.

Beth carefully took a breath, not certain what to say next. "I'm not sure I could describe living with a vampire. Mick and I don't have any children. A vampire male is technically sterile." Beth took another breath and shifted her gaze, not certain she could look the woman in the eye any longer. "Besides, any child going to school and announcing that their mommy and daddy sleep in a freezer, it would probably catch someone's attention."

Beth heard the woman gasp. "You mean you're one too? I mean, that's okay, I just didn't realize that Mick would consider leaving Alisa alone with another…" she trailed off. Beth wasn't looking at the woman, but she could tell that Annelise was looking at her child, searching for bite marks or injuries.

Beth could tell that the woman's pulse was picking up. Apparently she hadn't considered the possibility that Beth was anything but a human, and the revelation was making her nervous.

Josef chose that moment to walk in the room, he went over to where Beth had pulled up a chair, and kissed her on the top of her head. Beth looked over to him as he leaned over and gave the frail woman a warm embrace, silently thanking him for changing the topic. Even at five years old in vampire years, such close proximity to fear still made her mind wander to dark predatory instincts after a short while.

"Beth and your little girl are staying at my home while Mick is out of town. Alisa is truly in the best of hands, human or otherwise." Josef interjected, clearly aware of the conversation.

Annelise's pulse picked up even quicker. "Josef? What are you doing here?"

"Mick's my best friend." Josef said simply.

"Plus, it's been years since I've touched base with you, I thought I'd visit an old friend." he continued, a small smile playing on his lips as he winked at her.

She mustered a smile for him, then looked at her daughter, finally looking at Beth. Beth was relieved that Josef seemed to have a calming effect on the woman.

"She's hungry" Annelise said idly, seemingly out of the blue, looking back at her daughter.

"She'll usually start chewing on her fingers a few minutes before she starts crying." she continued.

Beth looked down at the infant, who indeed had abandoned the giraffe, and had started sucking on her fingers.

Beth excused herself to make the bottle, and to her surprise, Josef picked up the infant and slid into Beth's seat after Beth stood up. Beth watched as Josef set the infant on his own lap, and slowly rubbed the little girl's back.

"I wonder where on earth he picked up parenting skills." Beth wondered to herself as she picked up the diaper bag and walked to the nurses' station. When the young nurse looked up at her, Beth explained her need to make a bottle for the baby, and was soon directed to the lounge, which had the microwave she needed.

As Beth prepared the bottle, she realized she wasn't alone in the room anymore. The young nurse had rejoined her, and Beth could sense the woman's hesitation and fearlessness all in the same bundle together.

Beth turned to look at the nurse, who blushed, but held her ground. "The gentleman said that you're Ms. Alder's sister and that you're watching her infant while she's in the hospital." The perky nurse started by saying.

"Yes, I'm caring for the baby." Beth affirmed, ignoring the first statement. Of course Josef would have invented family bonds if the situation sounded good.

"He also said that he was your husband." The animated nurse continued.

Beth raised an eyebrow at the nurse, wondering where this conversation was going.

"Josef's wife is a redhead." the young nurse said, then looked somewhat apprehensively at Beth.. "I suppose he didn't recognize me," she continued, lifting the cuff of her long sleeve shirt.

"My name is Cassie," the young woman said, walking towards Beth.

Showing her bare arm, Beth found the scars of some well healed sets of twin puncture wounds; her own personal affirmation that vampires exist and having some sort of knowledge about them.

"And that's how you know him by name, and know I'm not his wife." Beth suppressed her smile. Josef, apparently was known in many circles.

"I've been a, um, guest of sorts, a few times at his home, when he had one party or another."

Beth smiled to herself. Josef was very active in the vampire social circuit, often hosting get-togethers at his home with refreshments, of the human persuasion, included.

"Is this conversation going somewhere?" Beth looked at Cassie, wondering what the girl wanted, and feeling just a little uncomfortable at being addressed in public.

"I just wanted you to know that Ms. Alder is truly very ill. I'll spare you the medical terminology, but with her weakened immune system, she has an infection in her blood stream. She may die within the next few days if the antibiotics don't start clearing the infection. If Anne has family, it would be a good time for them to spend time with her."

For Beth, the world stopped turning for a moment. While she could tell that Annelise was extremely ill, she didn't realize how seriously ill the woman actually was. Beth stood there, wondering what to do, how to tell Josef, wondering if Annelise knew herself. The nurse, realizing that her words had been unexpected, took the baby's bottle out of the microwave, screwed on the top and tested the temperature on the back of her hand.

"It's a little bit warm, but it will be cool enough for the baby by the time you get back to the room." The perky nurse said. Beth hadn't reached for the bottle so the nurse set it down on the counter. Cassie moved so she was directly in front of Beth, and took both of Beth's hands in her own. "I'm sorry what I said came as such a surprise. I wanted you to know that there may not be a lot of time."

Cassie reached over and handed Beth the infant's bottle, closing Beth's fingers around the plastic container. Beth had no idea how to handle the news about Annelise's life, but she did have her mind wrapped around one less pressing question. "How did you know to check the bottle for me?" she asked, recovering finally.

The young nurse smiled. "If you're hanging out with Josef, then you know that he doesn't keep many mortal friends. Plus not many of us warm-blooded adults need a thermometer to check the temperature of a warm bottle." Cassie glanced over at the thermometer resting on the counter, then looked back to Beth and gave a quick wink.

Beth looked at the young woman, who seemed to be so youthful yet so wise all in the same moment. On an impulse, Beth reached over and gave the young nurse a hug. "Thank you," she said, "for the advice about Annelise.

The nurse blushed slightly at having revealed something so bluntly about a patient, but she returned the hug. "Is there anything else I can do for you?" she asked.

Beth let go of the young woman, and looked down at the warm bottle in her hand. "No," she said, "I think I've got it under control."

Beth picked up the formula container, and slipped the thermometer back into the bag. She walked back into Annelise's room, and found Josef with his own arm around the sick woman, with the little girl perched on his lap quietly. Annelise was crying, and Josef was talking quietly to her. Beth didn't mean to intrude, but as the little girl saw the bottle in Beth's hand, she started squealing with excitement. Annelise laughed through her tears, and Beth picked up the little girl.

Josef, over the centuries, had nearly perfected the skill of communicating himself nonverbally through his own projected emotions. If his scent didn't say "Give us some time", Beth would have had to get her senses checked. Beth quietly took the little girl back to the lounge, and finding a comfortable chair, eased into it. She cradled the little girl into her arms, and the infant grabbed at the bottle. "Easy, easy," Beth said. "Just a second, honey."

Beth popped the bottle into the little girl's open mouth, and the little girl started greedily slurping down her bottle. Within a few minutes, the little girl had slowed down her pace, and was sleepily looking up at Beth, tracing her finger around the top button on Beth's sweater. Beth leaned over and kissed the top of the little girl's head, and started humming a lullaby. A few minutes later, the little girl was nearly asleep. Beth didn't want to disturb her, but she gently eased the infant into a more upright position to burp her. After getting the requisite burp from the sleepy infant, Beth shifted the baby's weight to her arm, and with her other hand, dug into the diaper bag and fished out a clean diaper, wipes and rash crème. She stood up and found her way down the hall to the restroom with a baby changing table.

A few minutes later, she re-emerged, holding the now sleeping infant. She found Josef waiting for her by the lounge. As Beth came closer, she could see that Josef was somehow emotionally exhausted. When she reached him, he held out an arm for her, and she found herself in his embrace. He kissed the top of her head, and she looked up at him. "Should I bring Alisa back in to see her mother?" Beth asked.

"No", Josef replied, "she needs rest, she's already asleep".

Josef walked over to the nurses station, and had a brief conversation with Cassie, while Beth put the diaper bag together, picked it up, and slung it over her shoulder – all while holding a sleeping infant in her arms. She wondered idly, what Josef wanted with Cassie. Maybe she'd ask him later, she decided.

Beth made her way over to the nurses' station, and Josef reflexively put his arm around her. "Thank you, Cassandra." He said, and then he bid her goodbye.

Still with his arm around her, Josef and Beth started walking down the hall towards the elevators. "Cassandra wanted to apologize to me for upsetting you." Josef said simply, knowing the question Beth was going to ask.

"So she told you how sick Anne is?"

"Annelise," he gently corrected. "And yes, I know how ill she is. Her scent, Beth, tells more than any medical test around. You've never smelled near-death before, but she's pretty close. She may have a couple days left. Her blood is filled with things that are killing her, both cancer and an infection. For her own sake, I hope its no more than a couple days."

Beth's eyes widened at his comment, and she turned to look at him.

Josef shrugged and looked towards the sleeping infant, then towards the floor. "Beth, humans die. Everything living dies at some point. This is how things happen. Here at the hospital, they can prolong her death, but they can't save her life. She's suffering, and nobody deserves to suffer like that."

Beth and Josef walked out of the hospital entrance, and Beth blinked a few times in the sunlight, shielding her eyes with her free hand. The car was right by the entrance. The driver held the door open, and Beth gently climbed inside, holding the sleeping infant.

Josef caught a flattering look of her backside as she entered the car. As she got herself situated and the infant into the car seat, Josef leaned in and told her that he'd be by the house later, that he had some details to finish here before he left and he'd be sending for another car.

Beth watched as Josef walked back into the double doors of the hospital as the driver closed the door. As the car pulled into the busy afternoon streets, she realized that one thing she needed was her own clothes.. She leaned over and asked him to take her to her own home, and gave the address.

Then Beth, weary from the sunlight, lack of sleep and the stress of looking after this one tiny human, closed her eyes and fell fast asleep in the car.

* * *

_Okay, its official. I am now at the end of my chapter and begging for thoughts, input (I don't think I've reverted to begging before, but I'm definitely doing it now). Am I doing okay with the characters? Are they too jumpy? Can I hold down a dialogue scenerio or do I sound like a goofball controlling robots? Am I leaving gaping holes that I fail to notice? Am I too long-winded?  
_


	14. Chapter 14

_I always like to write something at the top of my chapters. Today, however, the subject is different. _

Please bear with me.

I want to start by thanking (again) everyone who has taken the time to read what I've written in the last days and weeks. Again, a special thank you and hats off to those of you who have shared your opinions, your feedback, your ideas, and your thoughts. Some of you have taken the time to write me privately and have given me insight into improving myself as a writer and a storyteller, or shared more in-depth feedback and opinions. When I first began writing this story, I had no idea what a special and unique group of people I had stumbled upon. I never expected how much of a positive reaction I received, and I'm still stunned at the number of 'hits' my story has been racking up.

I would like to dedicate my story to each of you who have shared my journey into story-writing. I also would like the chance to apologize to each of you.

Yesterday, I received my official orders from one of the few things that can truly interrupt my life. I'm a member of the US Marine Corps Reserve, and my group is being activated before the end of the month. I won't have the time or the ability to continue writing after I leave, and waiting until I get back will be a good amount of time.

I have my fingers crossed that Moonlight contracts are extended and renewed and that we get a Moonlight Season 2, even if I may not get the chance to watch any part of it for months or a couple years.

I am really sorry that I don't have the chance to write another fifteen chapters and finish my story as I would have desired to. Here is my chapter 14. Before receiving orders, I had this chapter and much of the next chapter completed. I'm putting this chapter up now, and in the next few days I will put up as much of chapter 15 as I can and I will be including my intended plot as to what happens with the characters and where the story goes. It won't be perfect, but each of you deserve an ending to my story.

Again, thank you for sharing your time with me. I am really sorry to disappoint, especially when many of you have been so helpful.

Semper Fi.

-Anna

* * *

14. Home again

Several minutes later, the driver pulled up to the building that Beth and Mick called home. Beth opens her eyes at the sound of the vehicle being placed into park. She rubs her eyes, feeling strangely lightheaded. She unbuckled the infant carrier, then picked up the carrier with the sleeping girl inside, picked up the diaper bag, and thanked the driver. She greeted the doorman, who seemed surprised to see Beth with an infant, and Beth just smiled and said she was babysitting. She took the elevator up to the loft, and silently sighed in relief that a couple months ago Mick updated his security system. After he accidentally locked himself out one day, he invested in an eye-scanning override system for the lock on his door. The eye scanner recognized and accepted Beth, Mick, Josef and Sara; although according to the machine, it had data for eight people, as Mick experimented and realized that an eye that was glowing and silver wasn't recognized unless manually programmed that these four glowing irises were acceptable for entry too. Josef and Mick found the entire situation amusing, but Beth personally didn't care for the technology toys.

Beth looked into the scanner, and a moment later, the latch to the door unlocked. Beth entered her home, carrying the infant carrier and diaper bag, feeling wearier than ever before. She bolted the door behind her and reset the alarm. She sighed with exhaustion and realized that she was shortchanging herself on rest, and while she knew what it felt like from prior occasions, she didn't realize it was so taxing to care for a child as a vampire.

She went to the kitchen and poured herself a drink, then realizing that the infant was still sleeping, she decided she'd take her chances with taking a short rest in the deep freeze. She set the infant, still in her infant carrier, just beside the wall of the freezer, near the end where Beth would have her head. She looked at the sleeping girl, took off her clothes, and walked into the small freezer room. The chill was blissful, and Beth lay down and listened, realizing that she could still hear the child's heartbeat and breathing, even through the freezer walls. Quickly she fell into a restful sleep.

She awakened a couple hours later, not by the infant, but by her cell phone ringing in the diaper bag downstairs.

She groans, and decides to ignore it. She rolls over onto her side. The phone stops ringing. She sighs and rolls onto her back again. A few seconds later she hears the phone ringing again.

"Jeez, give it a rest," she thought.

She sits up a few minutes later, the phone still ringing.

Stepping out the door of the subzero, she wraps herself in a towel and ambles downstairs, picking up her phone. It had stopped ringing, but the display said there were 4 missed calls, each of them from Josef.

She hits the dial button, more than a little annoyed at having her slumber interrupted.

Josef answered the phone, and instead of his usual composed greeting, he raises his voice to a near shout. "Where the hell are you, Beth?!" he bellows. "Why didn't you come home?"

"I am home, Josef. My home."

"When are you coming back?"

"With any luck, after the sun goes down."

"Why didn't you come back to my place like you were supposed to?"

"I didn't realize I was under your strict orders of where I located myself," she says sarcastically. "What's wrong Josef?" she softens her tone, realizing that something must be bothering him. Its uncharacteristic for him to get snippy with her, unless he's worried about Sara or Beth.

Josef takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly.

"Nothing is wrong," he stated.

"Yeah, okay. I'll pretend to buy into that excuse. The kid is asleep. Until five minutes ago, so was I. I need to get more clothes, so I decided to get dropped off at my place, I'll drive over later. The baby and I are safe."

"Good," Josef stated simply, and Beth heard the click as he hung up his phone.

"What's bothering him?" Beth said out loud to her silent phone. She closed her phone, and set it in the diaper bag again. She padded back upstairs to check on the infant. From across the room she could tell that the kid was fine, and still sleeping. She decides to take the time while the kid is asleep to get herself packed up. She goes to the bedroom and pulls out her suitcase. She takes a couple favorite pairs of pants, a few tank tops, a few long sleeved shirts, and another favored sweater and sets them all in the suitcase. She fumbles through her dresser drawer and finds a few pairs of her favorite matching panties and bras, and a few pairs of socks. She sets them in the suitcase, and, after tossing in a pair of running shoes, she zips it closed. She quietly takes it downstairs by the door.

Walking upstairs again, she makes sure the infant is still sleeping soundly, and she decides to get dressed. No point in trying to get sleep when the baby ought to be up any moment. She finds her discarded clothes, and tosses them in the hamper.

She walks back to the closet and finds a pair of comfortable cargo pants. She smiles to herself, because she knows that Josef finds that specific pair of pants unflattering on her, but they're comfortable and she, at the moment, doesn't care what he thinks. As least they're not olive drab camouflage. She takes off her robe, and puts on her underwear and pulls on the pants. She opens the drawer and pulls out a t-shirt and slips it on.

As she's zipping up her favorite hoodie, she hears her phone ringing again.

"Jesus," she thinks, "Whats happening now?"

The phone has stopped ringing by the time she makes it back downstairs. As she flips it open to find her missed calls, it starts ringing again in her hand. The Caller ID says that its Mick.

She answers the phone.

"Honey, what's going on? Are you okay?", Mick launches questioning, before Beth can even say a greeting.

"I was trying to get dressed, seems like I can't even do that today. Whats up?"

"Josef called me a few minutes ago, wondering if I'd heard from you. Did you and Josef have some sort of problem?"

"Josef and I always have some sort of problem. He's not exactly 'Mr. Personality' you know."

Mick smiles silently into his phone, neither Josef nor Beth had scruples about throwing verbal punches. They're similar in more ways than he'll ever be willing to tell them. "That's not what I'm talking about, hon," he replies.

"Well, um…" Beth trails off for a moment, not even sure how to start explaining the last 20 hours to Mick. "What do you want to know?"

"I want to know why Josef was calling me five minutes ago flipping out because he couldn't find you."

"He's not my damn keeper," Beth says testily.

"Beth," Mick hesitates, then sighs. "Please talk to me honey."

"I don't even know where to start," Beth says, and closes her eyes, recollecting her memories of the last several hours.

"Maybe at the point where Josef lost his temper about Sara and I shopping last night.. Maybe I should start at the point where I was stabbed and Sara was shot last night. Maybe I should start at the point where he decided to come with me to the hospital today," Beth sighs softly, then barges on. "Maybe because I'm at the loft and not hanging onto his shirttails like he'd prefer."

"Whoa, whoa," Mick says. "It sounds like there's a lot going on, hon. Start at the beginning."

Beth takes a breath, and instead of launching into the chronological history of events, her eyes start filling with tears.

"Did you know Annelise was dying?" she asks. "I brought her baby to see her, and the nurse told me that she was close to death."

Beth sobs softly. "I don't want her to die. Not now."

Beth didn't realize she had feelings for a woman she hardly knew, until this moment.

She leans back against the wall, trying to regain her composure.

"I know that must have been rough for you to hear, especially when you're taking care of her little girl."

Mick clears his throat softly over the phone, then steers the conversation in a different direction. "Lets get back to Josef and whats happening now."

"He called a few minutes ago and seemed to be totally livid because I wasn't sitting pretty at his home waiting for him."

"And you're at the loft?", Mick questions.

"No, I decided to spontaneously hop on a yacht headed to Europe," Beth says, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

She rubs the tears out of her eyes, determined to keep her own emotions under better control. "Yes," she finally says simply, "I'm here at the loft."

Mick chooses to ignore her sarcastic commentary. "And you're safe?"

"Yes, I'm not in any imminent danger that I know of. Do you think I'd be having this crazy conversation with you otherwise?"

"Beth…" Mick starts, then trails off, somewhat lost for words. "While Josef was at the hospital, sometime after you left, the car you had been in... It was hit by a truck. It must have split the fuel tank, because the car exploded. The driver didn't survive, and when Josef was informed by his staff that you hadn't returned, he was more than a little worried that you were still in the car too."

"Oh God," Beth says, feeling the blood drain from her face. "I had no idea…." She trails off, lost for words.

Still leaning against the wall, Beth slowly slumps to the floor. She feels like a complete ass for trading words with Josef. She wonders why he didn't just say what happened, instead of acting like the only problem was that she wasn't at his home.

Mick gives her a moment, then softly clears his throat. "Beth," he says, "Don't blame yourself… for anything."

"I think I need to get over to Josef's house," Beth says, and quickly says goodbye to Mick. She closes her phone.

Beth takes a few deep breaths, trying to slow down her heart, that wasn't beating anyway. It's a reflex that she's hardly aware of.

As she stands up, she hears the infant stirring upstairs. Nap time is officially over.


	15. Chapter Fifteen and the end

_I am absolutely speechless by the outpouring of kind words and prayers sent my way. I wasn't expecting a response on this magnitude. Again, you are all part of a very special group. Thank you so much for being so supportive of me and my decisions in life (and for not being irritated and angry that I couldn't finish my story as I had desired to). It touches me so deeply that so many of you wished me well on my journeys ahead. I will do this nation proud._

_I didn't realize this last chapter to be so difficult, summing up everything thats been dancing in my head. Some of these things lack depth, grammar, and maybe a little sense from time to time, but I wanted each of you to know where my story was headed. A lot of my summarizing towards the end have my own thoughts added in it. I hope it doesn't confuse things, but helps explain why I'm going for one effect or another._

Again, from the very bottom of my heart, thank you. I'm switching e-mails on this site, so if anyone decided to PM me about anything, or if they want further information about what my group and I are up to (or if anyone has/knows a classroom full of little kids who would like to hear about what life's like), let me know, I won't lose my e-mail after 30 days inactivity. I won't have computer access for three months solid, and if you're looking to share snail-mail, drop an e-mail and let me know)

Thank you so much for your time, and thank you for reading what I've written...

They say that Marine's don't cry. I'm trying to keep up with that running belief.

Thank You.

-Anna

* * *

15. The return to Josef's house

After hanging up the phone, Beth returns upstairs. She picks up the infant out of her carseat. The little girl beams at Beth and grabs a fistful of Beth's hair. The little girl giggles and tugs, trying to pull it into her own mouth.

"Hey there, little monkey," Beth laughs, "If you're intent on sticking hair into your mouth, wait until you grow a little more of your own. I am not your personal hair-donor".

Beth gently pries the little girls fingers open and pulls her hair out of the little girl's grasp.

"Come on, sweetie, we've got places to go and people to see," Beth says.

She holds the baby up in the air, and the little girl squeals with delight.

Picking up the carrier, Beth and the baby go downstairs, where Beth changes the little girl and finishes getting herself ready. She buckles the infant back into her car seat, and despite protests from the little one, manages to get her car keys, diaper bag, her suitcase and the car seat under control as she walks out the door.

Taking the elevator down to the garage, she loads everything into her car.

As she pulls out of the garage, she puts on her sunglasses and squints at the afternoon sun. She hates driving in the daylight.

Several minutes later, she arrives at Josef's home. Leaving everything else, she takes the baby inside with her as she shields her face from the sun. As soon as Beth walks in the doors, she is nearly knocked down by a figure giving her a lopsided bear-hug. It is Karl, and seemingly at a loss for other words, he simply says, "Welcome back".

She softly kisses him on the cheek, and returns his hug, but more gently, so not to squash the infant. "I'm sorry that I caused worry in this household, Karl."

Karl smiles at her then gives her another hug, then slowly walks off, back to work, sleep, or whatever he did in the late afternoon.

Beth looks around the front entrance hall. She quietly tries to locate Josef, inhaling deeply Aside from some animated laughing, singing heartbeats and talking from the Freshie Wing, the house is silent. Either he's in his freezer, or he's not inside the house, she decides. She walks over to her guest room, and sets the little girl in the infant swing, turning it on, and turning on the DVD once again. The little girl starts watching the characters on the television animatedly, laughing and waving her arms. Beth smiles at the little girl, then walks outside to her car. Picking up the diaper bag and her own suitcase, she locks the car and returns into the house.

She walks back into the guest room, reaching into the diaper bag and bringing out the giraffe. The little girl seems to not notice, she's watching the characters on the television as she rocks back and forth. Beth sighs softly, and sinks into the couch, just worn out. It isn't often that she only gets to sleep in fits and spurts, and it takes a toll on her body. She puts her feet up on the coffee table, and relaxes to the rhythmic sound of the baby swing. The more tired she is, the more acutely aware she is of every distraction. She feels the soft leather in the couch beneath her, the ridges and seams. The leather itself smells faintly of dye, and slightly more so of lemon. Outside the shuttered window, she can hear the birds twittering, and even hear the soft breeze through the treetops. She listens to the baby laughing, and idly wishes she had a background in music composition, because the melody of the little girl's giggles are enchanting when coupled with the sound of her little heartbeat and the soft singing of her blood in her little body.

Beth finds exhaustion hitting her, and she closes her eyes as she listens to the room. Slowly, she starts drifting asleep.

And this is how Josef found her, asleep on the couch, inside the festooned baby room. The festooned baby, was seemingly content, in the infant swing, still babbling at the animated DVD. He longs to sit beside her, hold her close, and reassure himself that she's really here. If she's so exhausted that she'll sleep on the couch, she's probably hungry too, he reasons. Hunger isn't such a far stretch from reality, Josef is famished too.

He walks to his office, removing his suit jacket, and pressing his intercom button for his meal. He sits down on the couch. A moment later, a freshie is at his door as requested. "Come in Whitney," he says to the gorgeous woman with chestnut wavy hair, and the eyes of sapphires. The dazzling woman sits beside Josef and leans her bare neck towards Josef. Stroking her neck, he tries to barricade away his thoughts of his trying day, and focus on making it a pleasant experience for the woman. She moans softly happily anticipating what happens next, and Josef leans in. After an overdose of hospital smells, Whitney is a very welcome change. He sinks his fangs into her singing jugular vein.

* * *

Well folks, that's as far as I got.

* * *

Now its my turn to spill my guts and talk about everything I wanted to place within this story.

Beth feels awful because she realizes how worried Josef must have been when he couldn't locate her, and she's come back rather quickly to Josef's home. She's absolutely exhausted and falls asleep on the couch. Josef finds her like that, and after taking care of his own needs (food), he goes to comfort her and reassure himself of her presence.

Beth wakes up to find herself in his arms, on the couch, and when she's fully awake, she tries to apologize for making him agonize about her. He's just really relieved, and cuts her apology short by shushing her and gently kissing her on the top of her head.

The sun goes down, Sara wakes up. Sara comes downstairs after a quick shower (no, I don't have an explanation how they go from subzero temperatures to a cold shower without making frost or ice at some point upon themselves, I've added shower in my story at least one other place but I have no explanation). She's been completely oblivious to the last day's transpirings, being asleep as she should be. She has breakfast. She goes over to Beth's guest room, and is surprised at finding both Beth and Josef, and that Beth is crying (Josef has just informed her that Annelise passed away later in the afternoon). Sara senses all the strong emotions swirling around her and realizes that she's missed a significant set of events. Sara is standing in the hallway contemplating giving Josef and Beth room to sort themselves out, when the baby starts crying.

Sara recognizes that the baby is hungry (maybe hunger is an emotion that she can sense too), and she takes it upon herself and goes inside and gently picks up the baby, formula, bottle, thermometer and fixes the baby a bottle. Sara proud of her accomplishment with childcare. Sara, wanting to be nearby to Beth (she's worried about Beth and also doesn't want to be too far away in case there's a problem with the little one), chooses to feed the baby in the front entrance hall (I keep picturing some ornate piece of furniture designed for sitting upon, but I don't know what to call it in English). Sara finishes feeding the baby about the time that Josef comes out of Beth's room. He kisses his wife gently on the cheek and picks up the baby, asking if Sara can go in and comfort Beth. I keep imagining that the two of them have a really deep bond.  
Baby takes this moment to spit up all over Josef's suit (I've made it this far without a crack at baby puke, I figured we were due up). Josef is taken aback, but laughs it off with some remark about the way things have been going today, he didn't expect the suit to survive anyway (alluding to when Beth is upset and crying, it winds up being at the expense of whatever it is that he's wearing because she cries all over it and ruins the fabric). He takes the baby upstairs with him to change, while Sara goes in to try to comfort Beth.

Sara goes in and holds Beth close, and Beth pours her heart out. Because of Beth's exhaustion, she's just really upset about worrying Josef and berating herself about ignoring his phone calls, and upset about Annelise. Sara consoles Beth, and Beth, due to being so worn out, tires quickly. After Beth is calm and has unloaded about everything bothering her, Sara insists that Beth take care of Beth, and Beth concedes to having something to eat and taking a nap (in the freezer, not the couch). After making sure that Beth is doing okay, Sara goes looking for Josef, and is surprised to find him in his office working, with the little girl contentedly sitting on his lap.

Sara sits down on the couch, and she and Josef talk (about what, I still haven't decided, either about Beth, or about Josef's own past where he helped care for an infant sibling, thus explaining his hidden talent with the kid).

Mick shows up (yes, I know that San Francisco and LA are more than a few hours apart, but I am tired of not having Mick in the story and I want him back already). He comes in the house and realizes that Sara and Josef are upstairs with the baby and joins them, has a drink. Sara and Josef fill him in on the details about everything that's happened since he left, and Mick goes down to be with Beth.

I haven't decided whether Mick sits down on the floor of the bathroom waiting for her to wake up, or if he decides to climb in himself (without her waking up) and hold her close until she wakes up.

Beth wakes up an hour later (I keep wanting to throw in a scene about Josef and Sara having to deal with a dirty diaper, Sara having a small insight from the night before about diapers, and Josef knowing about babies but not familiar with disposable diapers, and if Mick isn't in the freezer, he's just somewhat appalled by the entire thing… Josef and Sara brought the kid back down to Beth's guest room for diaper change). After Beth wakes up and meets up with Mick (wherever he is, in or out of the freezer), he holds her close. Beth feels better from resting, but Mick is still comforting to her. She tries to explain everything that's happened since he left, and Mick shushes her, because he's heard most of it already and doesn't want Beth to have to wade through the day again.

Baby, meanwhile, has fallen asleep for the evening in Sara's arms.

Beth and Mick are enjoying each other's company (I keep wanting to allude to an intimate scene between them, but those are very hard to write about without turning off people, no matter how well written). Beth is happy Mick is back.

Mick brings up all the stuff he found while digging around at Tom Cudelli's home. Apparently the guy is very well off, has photos of other children (nieces, nephews and a godson) scattered throughout his home.

Mick and Beth jointly decide the best place for them to go is to the cottage (a kind-of out-of-the-way place, a retreat). Josef bought the house and had it outfitted for vampires and/or human guests, and gave it to Beth and Sara as a place for them to get away from their respective husbands and have time together, or as a communal gathering place. The downstairs fits into any other concept of a Mediterranean style house/cottage by the edge of the woods. Open, airy. The only difference is that there's a wing with four mm… vampire suites… Somewhat similar to where Beth was at in Josef's house

Beth and Mick (and Sara, Josef has to go to work and actually do something with himself) help pack up and go over to the cottage. One of the vampire suites is Beth's and Mick's, a second belonging to Josef and Sara. The other two are pretty much for guests… The normal part of the house has an open livingroom/diningroom/ kitchen. Upstairs is four normal-human bedrooms. The basement below the vampire suites has two more bedrooms for vampires (where Karl stays if he's there), and the set-up for a full technology office (for when Josef needs it). Additionally, there's a fully functioning human-style guest house in the back.

Because Beth and Mick and Sarah and Josef are here frequently enough, they have their own clothes in the closet. Josef employs a housekeeper (vampire) to keep the place clean/dusted when they're not around, to make sure there's fresh human food in the fridge (sometimes months go by without human guests and someone needs to make sure the milk and orange juice don't go bad).

The girls and Mick are moving the baby's stuff over to the cottage, and they decide to put the little girl and her stuff in the corner of the livingroom, so she can still be heard from the vampire wing if she wakes up.

Now having two vampires learning about infants, Beth goes into a show-and-tell course.

Mick's phone rings just before dawn, and its Tom Cudelli, and Mick finds some quiet place to talk with him. Mick essentially explains about Annelise, the baby, Annelise's death, and that "congratulations, Tom, you're a father."

Tom says that he'll be back as soon as he can, but it'll be a couple days due to the distance.

It's a long conversation, and whenever Mick gets back upstairs, he finds that both girls have zonked out as the sun came up. He goes and checks on the baby and finds that she's awake.

He tries (and its humorous to watch) to go over the baby-care things that Beth had described earlier, changes her and feeds her, then sets her on a blanket on the floor downstairs in the office/basement with some toys, as he tries to get some office work of his own done. He still has a case about vampire wannabees and he's been tracking their movements. After a few hours, the baby falls asleep, and Mick sets her in her crib, then goes and settles in with Beth for a few hours of shuteye.

Kid wakes up, wakes up the whole house, and Sara decides that she wants to take on the challenge of changing and feeding the kid. The vampires sit around drinking (yes, packaged blood is around, plus Josef had some of his "good stuff" sent over by courier) Beth supervises while Mick decides to goes to bed for a little while.

Mick sleeps, the girls decide to forgo their own tiredness, and take the baby shopping for more things. They find a baby boutique store and Sara and Beth have a blast picking out some cute outfits for the little girl. Then they go to a baby super store and pick up some essentials like a baby bathtub and a stroller.

They come back home, and they and the baby are ready to sleep. Mick is still sleeping.

A few hours later, the baby cries and Sara wakes and hears it. She goes to care for the baby, and then notices that Mick's car is gone, and senses that Mick has been gone for awhile. Sara decides to give the little girl a bath, and does remarkably well. She dresses the little girl and puts her in the baby swing after turning on the dumb fangled DVD.

She goes to check on Beth and finds that Beth is still asleep but having a nightmare. Sara goes into the freezer, completely clothed, to soothe her friend. Sara holds her close and slowly Beth eases out of her nightmare and back into peaceful sleep. After holding her friend close for awhile longer, Sara steps out and goes to check on the baby.

The little girl starts fussing when she sees Sara appear again, and Sara doesn't know what to do. She changes the little girl, feeds her, which she doesn't want, and finally at a lack of new ideas, she picks up a blanket, reclines on the couch, sets the blanket atop her and sets the infant atop that. The little girl calms down almost immediately, and Sara and the little one are looking at eachother and talking nonsense.

This is how Josef finds the two of them when he shows up. He offers to take the kid so Sara can get some rest. Sara complies, but instead of going to her freezer, she goes back to where Beth is, and completely dressed, she goes into Beth's freezer and puts her arms around her.

An hour or some later, the sun goes down and Beth wakes up, waking up her best friend inadvertently. The two have a chat about whatever's bothering Beth. Turns out she had a nightmare about her niece and nephew being hurt and lost, Coraline taking them, and Sara and Beth talk about Beth's niece and nephew and how much she misses them.

When they're done, they go to find breakfast and Josef. They find him down in the office, with Karl and Ryder, and the little one asleep on a blanket beside the desk. The guys are having drinks, and the ladies pour themselves another round.

In the middle of this, Josef's phone rings. Its Mick, calling that he was tailing his suspects and when he found them starting to harm a person in the park, he snapped and killed two of them, but now he has about eight more following him, someone tried to stab him with a silver knife (one of the guys Mick killed) and while it's a glancing blow, he's hurt.

Josef calmly directs him to lead the posse in their direction, that the cottage is far enough away from prying eyes (or ears). He sets another blanket over the baby, and asks if anyone is ready for some fun tonight. Ryder and Karl get a gleam in their eye and head over to a locked room off the basement office, where there are mainly vampire weapons, but arm themselves and toss one to Josef. On a second thought, Karl walks back to the room and hands a weapon to each of the girls. Ryder questions Karl and Karl says something to the effect of "better them able to protect themselves if we can't". Beth moves the sleeping infant into one of the downstairs rooms and sets her on a couch, locking the door behind her. The team goes upstairs and Josef locks the entire basement. Josef orders the girls to stay inside the house, calmly calls the cleaner to xyz area of the park where there are two dead people and a human who may still be alive but who has seen too much, then afterwards to come over to xyz address because there's about to be a bloodbath that he'll need help clearing.

Josef calls mick, who gives his ETA (um… the amount of minutes before he arrives at his destination) at about three minutes. Josef instructs him to polish his acting skills and limp towards the back of the house slow enough so his little mob can follow. Josef orders the girls to stay in the house, and Ryder, Josef and Karl take up tactical positions in the back yard. Somehow knowing what may happen, Josef places a quick call to have a handful of freshies sent to this address in 20 minutes. A few minutes later, Micks car pulls up the long driveway, followed by five more cars.

Mick drives up too the house, and exits the car before letting the car hit the edge of the garage. As the five cars park behind him, he pretends to have sustained some other injury in this vehicle crash, and limps and lists toward the back yard. The group of ten are in hot pursuit, and they gain on him. As soon as the group of badguys clear the positions of Karl, Ryder and Josef, the three vampires descend on the rear of the ranks. Their weapons are useless, they're much more effective with their speed and their fangs, they easily take care of the first six. One of the bad guys, uses the distraction of the chaos and slips inside through the back door. He pulls out the gasoline and starts spreading it around the contents of the room. Beth, acting on complete fury, leaps on the guy by the throat and severs his carotid arteries, and he's down within seconds. She looks out back and sees the Mick truly is hurt and one bad guy is standing over him ready to make a kill. She growls, and without realizing what she'd doing, she speeds over and tackles the bad guy, tearing her long canine teeth into his soft throat.

I can glorify the fight scene, but that's as far as I get for now.

Fight is done, Mick's suffering from mild silver poisoning, Karl and Josef are conversing calmly in a foreign language they're both familiar with, although they've both been shot through the chest somewhere in this battle. Ryder is ecstatic, its been years since he's gotten to jump in the fray. All the bad guys are dead. Sara's looking at the entire scene with wide-eyes. She hasn't been so close to such carnage before.

The cleaner arrives a few minutes later, and hot on her heels is a company car with freshies for the vampires. Mick, under his own accord, manages to walk inside and collapse on the couch, where Josef sends the first freshie when she steps out of the car. Mick protests, but its Beth who tells him to shut up and drink, and gives him a second one when the first girl starts to sway. After making sure that Mick's latched on to his second freshie, Beth helps the first girl upstairs and leads her to a bed.

Drink blood, the fighters are better. Mick finishes, feeling mostly better, slightly wobbly, sets his second freshie down on the couch, and heads out to his room for a shower.

He's feeling disgusted at himself, jumping in and saving one life possibly, but causing several more to lose their lives, plus endangering his closest friends. Beth, after having a drink of her own, goes into the bathroom and joins Mick in the shower. His emotions betray him, and Beth comforts him.

They come out of the shower, get dressed, and are shocked to find a freshly showered Karl holding the infant girl in his arms. Apparently Beth locked the little girl in his room, and he decided the little one needed to be back up here. Beth takes the little girl from his arms, and the giant man signs with great relief.

Josef is finishing with the cleaner, and it is learned that the woman attacked in the park was given an amnesia medication, her cuts were healed, and she was taken to the hospital. The cleaning staff that took her to the hospital said she slipped and hit her head, and the woman and the hospital staff believe it all. Everything is back to normal, bodies gone shortly thereafter.

Josef calls his own car service and has them pick up all freshies and take them to his home to recuperate.

Beth is still holding the infant, and takes a seat in the livingroom to talk with Sara. They chat about Sara just being stunned by the violence and her old fashioned beliefs that the police should be able to take care of things. Beth talks about vampire reality versus human reality. Sara brings up Beth's nightmare.

Mick's listening in the background as he hears about Beth's nightmare earlier.

Later on, Josef heads down to his office for a cocktail, and Beth, after putting the baby down in her crib, follows him.

Sara corners Mick and lets him know that ever since Beth has been dealing with the baby, she's been upset about her own niece and nephew. Mick and Sara formulate a plan, then they go downstairs to join the drinking party. After a long night, Beth excuses herself to get some rest before her personal rooster, in the form of a five month old girl, wakes her up. Mick and Sara head out on their own mission, and Josef and Ryder get back to work in the office.

Beth is woken at dawn by the little girl crying. She yawns and stumbles out of her freezer, tossing on clothes, and picks up the little girl. She changes her, makes her a bottle, and reclines on the couch while feeding her. Beth falls to sleep while giving the little girl her breakfast, and Josef finds her there a short while later. The little girl is slurping on an empty bottle and Beth seems dead to the world.

Josef is heading to bed himself in a few hours, so he takes the little girl down to his office, spreading a blanket and a few toys for her to play with, then returns upstairs and gently takes the sleeping Beth to her freezer after undressing her.

Awhile later, a giddy Sara returns followed by Mick. They come down to the office and start tinkering with setting up a camera to Mick's laptop. A few minutes later, printed pictures start whirring out of a small printer. Their mission is done. Josef wanders off to bed.

The baby starts fussing and Mick offers to take care of the little one while Sara finishes putting her pictures into envelopes, then buoyed by the daylight and the long night, she goes to her room and climbs in the freezer with Josef.

Mick awkwardly picks up the baby and takes it upstairs, setting it in the crib while he makes a bottle. It takes him a few tries to make one correctly, and as he's fumbling, he realizes that Beth is awake and she and the baby are watching him intently. He sighs and raises his hands in surrender. Beth helps make bottle, but gets Mick situated to feed the little girl.

After feeding, the girl goes down for a nap, and Mick and Beth retreat off to take one themselves.

Lalala… rest of the day goes uneventfully…. Later in the afternoon Mick Beth and Baby are awake, and they sit in the shade of the back porch, letting the little girl play on a blanket in the shade.

Evening… Beth and Sara are exhausted but Josef and Mick wake up moments after the sun goes down.  
The two of them wake the baby, feed her, change her, bathe her, and the little one goes back to sleep.

After Sara wakes up, Josef and Sara decide they're heading over to the office for some work (and a heart to heart about the evening's events, because Sara is still shaken at seeing so many humans killed at once)

I need to add in a whole another day to this… Domestic mainly, Beth Mick and the baby. Some tender scenes between beth and the baby, Mick bumbles a few things up (like not fastening a diaper on tightly, leading to a very wet soggy mess all over the little girl and himself). The little girl gets her first tooth… etc…

Mick gets a call late the next afternoon from Tom Cudelli, he's in LA. Mick tells the guy to get a room at a nearby hotel, and that he will be there around 10. Mick, Josef, one of Josef's lawyers, and a judge all arrive, along with Beth and the baby. Josef has gotten Annelise's will, and Annelise has willed everything to her daughter. The judge and lawyer (both vampires) are there to make sure the situation goes smoothly and off-the-books.

Insert research about what on earth happens legally to an infant when an unmarried parent passes away, and everything is taken care of legally.

Its all wrapped up, Josef arranges for a moving company to be ready to move Annelise's house out the next day

Tom and Beth sit down and chat (there's nobody in real life that I'm basing Tom off of, so realistically his character would be kind of flat… maybe fate means that I'm sparing you the pain) about the baby. Beth talks about the infant's schedule, which is pretty messed up. Tom discusses that his sister, his best friend, has four sons, ages 7-15, and is going to be thrilled about having a niece.

Beth offers to let the child stay with her the evening, and tomorrow, Tom can stay at their cottage (the human guest house) for a couple days to get to know his daughter a little better.

Next morning, Beth is asleep and Mick has the baby down in the office when Tom comes.

They talk about "guy stuff" and about the baby girl. Tom's an expert on this baby stuff, having nieces, nephews and a godchild, and has already called his sister, who is turning his guest room into a baby room today in San Francisco. Tom already has a storage room set up for all of Annelise's things.

Beth comes down a little later, and seeing how tired Mick is, asks Tom if he'd be interested in moving the baby's things to his guest house, and having a dry-run with the baby all day. He's excited, and shortly thereafter Mick and Beth are moving stuff from the livingroom to the guest house.

Everything goes smoothly, Mick lets Tom know that they have another engagement to attend to (in this case, the engagement is with a freezer), but he's welcome to call mick on his phone if there are any problems.

Tom takes baby

Mick and Beth go to bed.

They wake up around twilight and are surprised to find a woman and five year old little girl at Tom's house with Tom and the infant. He introduces them, the lady is his sister-in-law and the kiddo is his niece. They're going to help him escort the little girl back up to San Francisco, as the sister has worked to get the house ready for a little one. They're going to leave the next morning, and Tom, reiterates his deep and heartfelt thanks for help with his little one.

That night, Beth and Mick reminisce sitting on the back porch, having cocktails, about the crazy week its been. Beth talks about how much the little girl reminds her of her own neice, and Mick just holds her close while she cries silently.

Next day, Humans leave enroute to the airport, and Beth finds herself not sleepy entirely, but preferring to mope around the house aimlessly. She finally gets some rest around 10am, and is startled awake by someone banging on her door around seven. "Wake up, sleepyhead" comes the excited voice of Sara.

Beth showers, then comes to the livingroom. "Did you forget, Beth?" Josef asks with a smile on his face… "Today is your fifth birthday. Well, yesterday, actually, but today is a day to celebrate.

Josef wraps her up in a hug and kisses her on her forehead, placing a small wrapped gift in her hand. She opens the box and finds "one-of-a-kind" designed pearl earrings to match a pearl necklace that Josef gave her years ago, one she's never taken off since. Josef hands the ladies each a wrapped box of clothing and tells them to go get dressed. Beth has a cerulean silk princess cut gown, and Sara emerges with a deep hunter green silk gown, empire cut. When the girls arrive back downstairs, both men are wearing suits, and escort their women out the Josef's awaiting car for a social party at his house.

La la la party… meeting people, celebrating beth's birthday (is there an equivalent to doing 'shots' in cheers for someone's birthday for vampires). Daniel (the one falling over himself before) asks if he can give of himself for Beth's birthday, and for once, Beth obliges.

At the end of the evening, as the guests are leaving, Beth is sitting in the living room, thinking about everything that's happened in the last 10 days, Sara comes down from her bedroom and sits beside her. Beth talks about Alisa and how much she misses the little girl, how much Alisa reminds her of Erica, her own neice… And just starts crying.

Sara holds her close and comforts her, and only when Beth stops crying, she realized that Sara has a box with a bow on it with Beth's name written on it.

Sara states that in lieu of all of this occurring, the one thing that Sara can give Beth is some peace. Beth opens up the Package and finds three framed snapshots, the first of Elliot and Eriac (nephew and neice) giving their mom a kiss goodbye when they're obviously somewhere at school. The second one is of Elliott, who's on the school's baseball team, at bat, focucing every moment he can on the ball. The third is of Erica at her ballet class, performing some exquisite jump and leap.

"I realize I couldn't ever give them back to you, Beth, but I wanted to give you peace of mind that they were okay and well loved. They're growing into beautiful young adults"

Beth and Sara cry, and its only interrupted by Josef who comes down to check on the girls. Beth hugs him tlightly and whispers softly, thank you for giving me one of the most amazing sisters in the world.

And that…. Is the end of the story, folks.

* * *

_The second half of chapter 15 is really wobbly, not entended to have several chapters smashed together, but alas, thats the time I have. So, at the very least, please find it within your hearts to be thankful that I finished this before I head out. I'm sorry it wasn't in 15 chapters nor the style I had intended to write it in. But here it is, here is everything. Thank you for reading. -Anna_


	16. Chapter 16 Change in Orders

This is just one big Author's Notation: :)

I hate having to put this in a actual chapter, but it is the quickest way I can demolish information quickly to a lot of people.

My assignment was changed for my military job. After three weeks of insanity packing up, getting clearances, etc… my orders changed. (there's something going on, but I'm not at liberty to speculate) I get to stay in my city. I get to keep my civilian job. I get to keep my computer running and write my little stories. And even cool, I'll get to watch Moonlight when it airs again in April.

Thank you again for everyone who has read my story, sent me well wishes and prayers. The outpouring completely left me speechless. You are a wonderful group of people.

Now that my Baby story is essentially over, I almost have no use in writing it (you all know how its going to go). I'll be working on a new piece in the upcoming days as time permits. Keep your eyes peeled.

Again, thank you for the warm support I've received. Its not always easy to be in the armed forces.

-Anna


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